The Authentic Eclectic

The Tip of a Heel

We pass things between us as did our fathers and grandmothers. We know our own by the blue notches on their left earlobes. I see us in Managua, Saint Petersburg, Nairobi, and Rome.

Photo by twk tt on Unsplash

Objects of power. That is what we exchange. By the ordinary eye, these are mostly trinkets at best, trash at worst. There is an energy to all things that belong, but the freshly discarded crackle: a bouncing ball thrown across a parking lot, a wrapper dropped on the ground, a love letter torn a-twain.

There are rules, as in all things. The force of gravity strengthens in proportion to proximity; the energy of belongings strengthens in reverse proportion to your position when they are dropped, an equally mysterious law of the universe. Another rule my mother taught me the thrilling day my ear was clipped is that every individual can only absorb an object’s energy once. Further, apart from exchanges of third parties’ belongings between ourselves, they must not be given purposely, so we must scavenge like magpies.

That is why we travel. Alone, we can only gather serendipity close at hand; by exchanging, we accumulate tremendous power.

Today is a special day. I am flying to our decennial conference in Guangzhou. My suitcases are crammed with drops I have been hoarding over the past year. They are…