Make- believe

“For Sale: baby shoes, never worn,” ~ attributed to Ernest Hemingway, first published in “Papa,” a one-man play written by John DeGroot, 1995.

I keep a notebook and pen with me always. Even by my bedside, I have something to write with in case I wake up from a strange dream, or at that tenuous boundary between asleep and awake, a thought comes to me. No matter how sure I am that I will remember this fascinating idea come morning, I know I won’t, so I write it down.

When I’m out for my morning walks, or when I get a chance to get out for a once weekly photo hike, I look for unusual images to capture. Things most people may walk by, I stop and turn around. Knowing I will regret it if I don’t get the shot.

Errands around town often lure me into thrift stores and antique shops, where I can find a plethora of interesting trinkets. I turn off the sound on my cell phone so I can surreptitiously take photos of knickknacks, statues, or strange decoration that grab my imagination.

I wander through the musty stalls looking for inspiration, things that help me make up stories to tell.

There is estate jewelry, yellow and curling photos, a priest’s cassock and rosary, old books in German or Latin, still life paintings of fruit and portraits of stoic men, vintage Remington typewriters with words frozen in time along its inky ribbon, and lost violins, their music silenced.

So many tales longing to be told, I simply have to listen.