A man had an eye for what was overlooked. He brought home what he found.
- A hummingbird’s nest!
- A shell from the desert!
- A piece of sea glass!
He kept his findings in a cabinet of curiosities. When that was full, he began another, of puzzlings.
- A pair of wings from a tree.
- A dollar made of sunlight.
- A cinderblock with a small forest in it.
That cabinet filled up as well, so he began one more, of impossibilities. Then, one of disorientations. Then astonishments, ecstasies, vanishings. The furniture had to go so there was room for more cabinets.
- A bird flying in a stone.
- An old married pair of dice.
- A feathered heart.
Every other Sunday he opened the doors of his home, which by that time was a museum with no admission charge. People came. Some marveled, some recoiled, some moved far away and began new lives. And some brought things they themselves had noticed, and picked up, and not known what to do with, glad to find a home for them at last. The man was glad as well, and received whatever was brought.
- A portrait made of smoke.
- A few grains of being twenty.
- An entire Tuesday afternoon.
Finally the man, now old, couldn’t take in anything else. He grew weary and confused in his mind. None of his wandering thoughts brought back good news. He sat silent more and more. Still, people brought what they had rescued with their attention.
- A novel written in flying geese.
- A rose that said a man’s name over and over.
- Hundreds of sunsets.
There was no more room inside, even to open the door, and so findings were left outside in piles.
- A song that flooded the cellar.
- An animal where everyone lived.
- A half-handful of the tiny bricks everything was made of.
The piles became a hill, the hill a mountain, the mountain the whole world.
- A street covered with snow.
- A red leaf.
- Morning.
And still people came, bringing whatever they had, and left refreshed, with hope enough for anything, no matter how unlikely, knowing that somewhere in the world, no one really knew where, there was said to be someone to whom everything mattered.
Peter Cashorali is a neurodivergent queer psychotherapist, formerly working in HIV/AIDS and community mental health, currently in private practice in Portland and Los Angeles.