55/365 Wool Socks

"How can you possibly wear wool socks?" she asks.

How. Can. You. Not.

Are those enough words? Because wool socks are important to me. They are enough important that I darn the ones I own, using a round rock as a darning egg. One pair is more scrap wool on the bottom than original knit fabric. I love my wool socks.

54/365 objects: bike

Mid-1970s Motobecane Mirage Mixte. Old as me. Silver, been neglected
for years. Rehabbed it at a local place that jacked up its rear derailleur but put it on the road again.

My aching neck and back a thousand miles later took me to the right shop that fixed it (for the price of a cheap new bike).

Now it sings.

51/365 Objects: Photos

I was called upstairs to peruse the jewelry and wanted nothing. My aunt said, "Bridgett, that box is yours. You've earned it as family historian."

All the photos from her dad's side.

All. 33

First communion photos. Snapshots. People I could piece out. A tintype of my accidental namesake. I was, am, overwhelmed by the trust and responsibility.

I will do right.

50/365 Objects: Hoodie

John gave it to me before he left for a job in Iowa he didn't get because he failed the drug screen. He knew I loved a black hoodie and this one had his union symbol on the back. It disappeared in spring 2016, I don't know where I left it, and I will never ever forgive myself for losing it.

48/365 Objects: Dressers

"You have to take Mom's dresser that matches mine and if you ever get rid of it you have to give it to me." So said my sister Colleen, pretty much her first reaction when I told her I was moving out. Other demands and requests followed. I have followed them all to the letter. The dresser is in my room.

47/365 Hiking Poles

I've taken my titanium hiking poles up and down Mt. Cammerer on the Appalachian Trail--twice. Through overlook hikes to the Grand Canyon. Up Mt. Apgar in the hail. Through the gypsum at White Sands and along the edge of the canyon at Zion. They've traced the sand at Two Medicine Lake and laid underneath my bunk at LaPrele. They're mine.

46/365 Objects: Music

My boyfriend's ex-girlfriend could sing. Basic guitar player, but sultry voice and long blond hair. My jealousy was beyond measure. When she died I burned her tapes she made for him onto CD and gave them to everyone who loved her. I'm still mystified by my behavior. I also made sure we kept her 8x10 headshots. I took neither with me.

45/365 Objects: Hearts

More messages from the universe. I followed a blog long ago about a farmgirl with a Norwegian Forest Cat named "New Cat." She collected heart shaped rocks. I had to. It took me months to find my first one. Now I have hundreds. People give them to me, I find others. When I die they can line my children's garden paths.

44/365 Objects: Dimes

People find pennies. For three months last fall I found dimes. Unlikely dimes in places where it didn't make sense. I decided to take them the right way. They were a message: Bridgett, you're a dime. Someone cosmically loving me.43 just when I felt the least lovable, the least like a ten. I needed them. They live in a cup on my dresser.

43/365 Objects: Notebook

Sat in court every day writing down everything that was said. My sister was a witness in her friend's murderer's trial. The heartbreak was too much to bear so I wrote, the words a literal magic spell to ward off this evil. Fat little orange notebook, I packed it up and took it with me, a rough memento cherished and hated.

42/365 Objects: Quilt (and cat)

"I love this quilt," Alyssa said as she got ready to move out of my house, fondling the hand tie-dyed sampler I made. "I would take it if you let me. And Hickory, she's the best cat. I know she loves me. If you don't mind."

I did mind.

Now my 13 year old loves that quilt up as she should.

41/365 Objects: Opal Earrings

All of it laid out on my aunt's bed. "This is her costume jewelry. Pick something out." My sister falling over herself at the chance to add my grandmother's pieces to her collection. Mute, I wanted nothing of hers. These earrings, they even felt haunted. "You're October," my aunt said. "You should have them."

No.

But I did. To please them.

40/365 Objects: Manipulatives

I was given a morning under the watchful eye of the vice principal. He gave me space to grieve and pack. Jenna kept asking: are these yours?

Yes.

They are all mine.

I'm taking it with me.

Yes.

Put it in my truck.

I took it all.

Stood in the alley and threw half away.

But yes. It was all mine.

39/365 Objects: keys

It was a high school photojournalism class. More time was spent getting to know each other in the darkroom than actually producing photos for the yearbook. We shied away from the darkroom in the art classroom, heading over to the one in the closet behind the science rooms. I graduated and the keys went with me. Souvenir of time well spent.

37/365 Objects: Stool

I gave that school my heart and it was broken when I wasn't asked back--then when the school, my parish school, closed. I visited the empty building, water damaged photographs echoing the obliteration of the past--when a school closes, continuity disappears. A science stool came home with me to live in my kitchen. It felt like a rescue mission.

37/365 Objects: Brown Quilt

I made it for him, Triple Irish Chain, in plaids and browns from a box of fabric I inherited when my aunt died. In the blank spaces, quilted three-leaf clovers and 42's, his union local.

His girlfriend stabbed it with a knife.

I took it home to repair and never gave it back. He died in June. This is what remains.

36/265 Objects: Box of Medals

On a college visit I stole this from my dead grandfather's dresser drawer, war medals in an old perfume box. My Russian teacher was impressed: a silver star. What didn't I know? As I got older, I learned
remembered
grieved
hated
changed
swallowed.
I stood on firm ground in the alley. I threw it in the dumpster and never looked back.

35/365 Objects: Cigar box

I stole it from vacation bible school, when I volunteered to make up for Saturday detentions for uniform violations at my too-strict Catholic High School. Thin wood, red and blue pasted Tabacalera labels. I stashed photos, postcards inside, a memory box for someone whose life was obliterated every two years swiftly without remorse or time for regret. It is half full.