About this time every year, Hank goes elk hunting. And when he goes, I clean house. Everything. Windows, floors, pantry, closets, toy chests, baseboards. I rearrange everything I can get my hands and physically move. The Feng Shui books come out, along with my Ba Gua wheel, and I study every angle, reflect on how chaotic life feels, and arrange things in pairs and triples and quadruples and place photos and colors deliberately in this corner or that, trying to enhance those parts of our family life that might need a pick-me-up or need to slow down. In fact, I might just repaint the front door on Tuesday.

But, in the midst of all of this decluttering and uncovering, I discovered treasure.


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Didn’t look like much. Just an old book. A collection of poems by Longfellow.

Then I opened it.

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Look closely.

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It was given to Ms. Morgan almost 100 years ago.

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I don’t know who she was.

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And I certainly don’t know why I now have it, other than I thought it looked cool several years ago and I’ve had it stacked with some old art books under a lamp for a while.

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I think this book just breathes adventure.

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How many have held this book?

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I can’t stop touching it. Or smelling it. It smells, I don’t know, wise.

I’m going to go stare at it some more. And yes, probably smell it some more, too. I’d bet it has a lot more to teach me than my Feng Shui books…

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