The Hidden Abundance of Objects
A salvation harbored in the chaos
One afternoon in 2008, my wife Nicole was having a bad day.
Recent work stress and turbulence over child custody matters with my ex-wife left Nicole down and exhausted. She got in her car and left home to run errands. At a street corner stop sign, she looked left and right for pedestrians before proceeding.
On her right, a grinning tiger leaned slightly against the stop sign post and stared back at her.
The universe does this sometimes. Just when life gets hard and we’re nearing the end of our rope, something random and inexplicably joyful drops in our lap. Or, in this case, drops next to a stop sign.
Nicole pulled over to investigate.
The grinning tiger was an abandoned, slightly damaged, hand-painted wooden statue. It held no names or identification. Who knows how many lives and past narratives the tiger statue traversed before being discarded on a street corner?
All Nicole knew was that the tiger emanated “good juju.”
