One Man's Trash

Last weekend we finished the demolition of the old, and raising of the new, shed.  I opted to spare the new shed some of the old shed's contents and made several trips to the curb with handfuls of who knows what.

On one of my last trips I saw a woman walking up the alley.  She looked weathered and I suppose natural, for a lack of better words.  Her skin had seen a lot of sun, her shoulder length hair had no meaning other than to exist and do what hair does, and her clothes were dumpster at best.  She reminded me of what I would assume someone who has committed themselves to studying wildlife in Africa might be like.  Although disheveled and messy, she seemed clean enough to be healthy and exuded an air of calm and peace.

As she passed the enormous amount of bundled old shed wood and rubbish, she quietly said, "
Oh, old racquetball rackets. Mind if I take a look?".  I found it incredibly odd how she managed to see the very tip of the handles poking out of one garbage can and was able to recognize that not only were they old, they were racquetball rackets.

"Help yourself" I said a little bewildered.

In that moment I ran a gazillion thoughts through my head. She pulled the rackets out of the can, looked them over with what appeared to be the knowledge of a professional antique racquetball racket appraiser and said "I will take this one if you don't mind. You know, one man's trash is another man's treasure".

I happily obliged her request and nodded at her commonplace words of wisdom.  As I was turning around to head back through my gate into the backyard she stopped me and said "and I don't mean just garbage".

I turned and studied her face for further clues. "That applies to all things in life, including people. Remember that." Again I nodded and spun to go back into the yard.  "Nice art work" was the next thing she said. She was looking at the tattoos on my arm.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't have to have a tattoo related conversation with someone.  I prepared myself for my standard answers.  When asked I explained that I did them myself she said "are you an artist"? To which I emphatically said "no", with a chuckle just to seal the deal.  She looked at me quizzically and said "you know, it is never too late to be what you should have been".

With that she walked away up the alley.  I watched her wondering who she was, why I had never seen her before, what she was doing behind my house and most of all how she knew those little bits of racket handle belonged to a vintage racquetball racket. 

I am not an artist.  I do not desire to be an artist.  However her words resonated with me so much over the past week that I had to write them down. "One man's trash is another man's treasure" and "It is never too late to be what you should have been". 

I couldn't agree more.