A Thousand Words

They say a picture has a thousand words.

After a fall mountain bike ride at Avalon in Patapsco State Park, I headed over an abandoned paper factory to take a few pictures. Growing up in Maryland, with its millions of rules, I knew better than to jump the fence surrounding it. I would certainly get arrested for trespassing and endangering myself. Then I saw something the made me completely forget my frustrations.

It was a small teddy bear wedged into one side of the fence at about eye level. If it could talk, what story it would it tell? How did it get here? How long has it looked out at the world from the lonely gates of an abandoned paper factory? Was it an angry guardian or solemn refugee? Was there a child out there who was distraught over loosing their favorite teddy bear? Ultimately, I would have no idea, but there were a few clues that compelled my inner forensic investigator.

Nestled into a bend in the Patapsco River underneath the original Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line, the original factory building was constructed as a textile factory in 1820. That's right, one hundred and ninety one years ago! It was re-tooled into a paper factory in 1928 then destroyed by a fire in 2003. The teddy bear had obviously been submerged at some point. Its color was faded and stained, evidence of water saturation and UV exposure. The flattened muddy vegetation near the river bank indicated recent flooding, but not high enough to reach the paper factory. The obvious conclusion was that it had found its way to the river, washed up on the shore, then had been wedged into the fence by one of the frequent visitors to the paper factory ruins.

My inner CSI was satisfied, but my imagination continued to be plagued by a barrage of unlikely possibilities that resulted in a teddy bear wedged into a paper factory fence. Was it tossed into the river by a grieving parent in a metaphoric act of letting go of a child who was lost too soon? Was it thrown out of the window of a passing car in the angst of an ended relationship? Was it washed into the storm drain from the trash of an unappreciative family who's consumerism no longer had a place for such a mediocre toy? Maybe it never floated down the river. Maybe it was a gift from a paper factory worker's daughter and had survived the fire. Who put it in the fence? Was it a hip urban explorer? Was it one of the droves of satanic goth punks who flock to the area to see Hell House (another ancient, burnt down structure across the river)? I would never know, but there was sadness, anguish, and despair in the teddy bear's history. I could feel it.

Perhaps I am just wildly personifying an inanimate object who's sorrowful gaze triggers a volley of my own emotions. Of course that's what I'm doing, that's what human beings do. We relate everything to ourselves. We create toys of plastic and cloth and bestow human emotions upon them. Seeing these bits of cloth and plastic - discarded, soiled, stained, and ravaged by the cold wind made me sad. Sad because it's the ending that the movie Toy Story never told (maybe they did, never saw the movies). The teddy bear was at the end of it's life cycle, no longer bringing happiness and warmth to its original owner. Only before it vanished into the leaves forever someone had perched it on the fence of a forgotten paper factory where it would live until the next act of randomness.

I believe when we feel sorrow, it is compounded by cumulative echos of past sorrows. Even if it is sorrow we have dealt with, the small scars remain. The neurological connections have formed and are easily revived if triggered. That compounding of life experience is what gives us depth and character, wisdom and grace. There as I stood in the cold, composing different pictures of the teddy bear I pondered how good it felt to be sad. How good it felt to be one hundred percent in the moment. It's funny that as I hurry though my life a random encounter with a piece of litter reminded me of my own humanity and that of my fellow humans. I was grateful for it. It's been a rough winter, the daily grind has worn my soul. Yet, hiding out in the most random places, there are treasures that can break through the numbness. They just need to be seen - even when they are right in front of us.

Those are my thousand words.