Collecting Thoughts

  
     I don’t think of myself as a collector. So why do I have more teapots than I can use? And there is a bird ornament of one kind or another in nearly every room of my house. My decorating style is somewhat spare…until it comes to my walls; I have to discipline myself not to cover every available space with a piece of artwork or something architectural. I do own a lot of movies, just over a hundred. I used to think that was excessive until a lady I worked with told me she owned close to six hundred. I love books, but I do not collect them promiscuously—although I probably would if there were a room in my house for a library. Most women collect shoes, but nowadays it is difficult for me to find attractive footwear that will fit my hobbit feet.

     If someone were to ask me what I like to collect, I would say: Thoughts, I collect thoughts. I keep thoughts for blog posts on my computer; I keep thoughts for stories scribbled on scraps of paper and stuffed into notebooks; I keep thoughts of my reflections on the meaning of life in a journal. And I don’t just collect my own thoughts: I have notebooks for interesting quotes, notebooks for poems and passages I like, and bookmarks for the blogs I read.

     I also spend a lot of time staring out windows or off into space looking for thoughts. Some thinkings are as delicate as moth wings and need a butterfly net to catch them before they flit away and are lost forever; some I can chase down and grab by the heels like the wayward shadow in Peter Pan; others I wrestle out of thin air and pin to a page in bold, black type—I’ve knocked the wind out of some of those, and they don’t always recover. And there are those thoughts I have gone to a great deal of trouble to hook only to find there is nothing much to them, so I throw them back, give them a chance to mature.

     At my age I lose some of the thoughts I have gathered over the years—they wander off and I can’t find them—but I have learned that if I leave them alone they usually come home wagging their tails behind them.

     My collection of thoughts is not something I horde; it isn't so valuable I need to keep it locked up in a safe place, but I try to be judicious and gracious with the ones that I share. It’s one thing to show someone your stamp or button collection, another thing entirely to expose them to your thoughts. This is the spot I choose to display some of my collection, this blogspot, and I hope visitors to my store of stories, my museum of memories will find something to please them.

Watercolor by Fran Evans for Two Bad Mice