A life left on the street

Part of the fun of living in our neighborhood is the curbside sharing of, well, almost everything.  Lamps, books, shoulder bags, hats, dishes, glasses, bookshelves, furniture--anything that people don't need anymore is left out by the sidewalk for someone else to make use of.  Inevitably most of it is snapped up.  We have a fair number of odds and ends that we ran across and have found useful.  We found a somewhat rusty bird-feeder a couple months ago and repurposed it, after removing the plastic feed tube and adding a plastic bird skeleton and a red light, as a Halloween decoration.

Most of the stuff on the street are household items with likely no story for previous owners except their former utility, though someone left a nice HO train set on the street after Christmas last year, probably after their kids got bored of it.  I found the small framed picture above on the street today.  I picked it up not to reuse the frame--though I have found some good picture frames along local sidewalks over the years--but because the framed amateurish drawing was compelling.

The picture seems composite, almost a collage of little drawings.  A frame house, a bare tree, a (male?) deer, a guitar, a turtle, a grazing horse, several dogs, a fish, hands fashioning a human figure, large and small paintbrushes, a book--not sure if it's printed or a journal, something that may be a smoother for plaster, and a man and a woman looking at each other, both I believe wearing glasses.  A number of ink sketches on a small card (it measures only 4 inches by 5 inches).  It's framed in a small wooden frame with a glass protecting the picture.

All these things likely meant something to the man and woman sketched.  It's not hard to imagine the house is their home, perhaps in the countryside with the deer, the dogs and the horse, maybe even the turtle, as their animals.  One of them played the guitar.  One was a writer (both of them were wearing glasses, a dead giveaway there).  One was an artist.  Given the big paint brush and plaster smoother they maybe fixed up the house together.  All sorts of details of a shared life in one small drawing.

I removed the back cover of the frame and found this handwritten note on the back of the card:

I hid the address and the phone number
to give Bill and Aggie some privacy. 

So this being a personal invitation to a marriage reception confirms the drawing commemorates a shared life.  That they may have put some time and energy in on the house is demonstrated by calling it their home rather than their house.  Their creative inklings are confirmed by the invitation being handwritten on the back of a drawing of their life rather than an engraved cursive invitation.  One can imagine the dogs trying to sneak food off the table or off people's plates at the reception.  Perhaps Bill or Aggie got out the guitar after most folk had left and played a couple songs for the last few guests as the dogs slept in an exhausted food coma.

So this isn't like a tossed out lamp or shoe rack or other item to be recycled by the neighbors. It's a personal artifact.  But I am curious about the story of how this ended up on the street.  This drawing likely resonated with someone until it didn't.  Did this belong to a friend or relative of Bill and Aggie, who after being so initially charmed by their invitation that he or she framed it, grow bored of the drawing or of Bill and Aggie and, while cleaning out old things, put it on the street with other odds and ends?  Did Bill and Aggie, after framing a spare invitation to remind them of the day they got married and had a reception at the home they worked on, split up, so one of them cleaning out their house and running across this decided to toss it, but lingering warm memories prevented that person from throwing it in the trash, so he or she just put it outside instead?  Did either Bill or Aggie die and the other, while trying to move on from his or her grief, let go of this tangible memory of their life together? 

It almost feels like an invasion of privacy to take the drawing of this couple's life to my house, examine it, and speculate on the couple's lives.  Dogs are typical pets and, while they are a bit uncommon, horses are not unheard of as a pet.  But a turtle?  What were Bill and Aggie's animals' names?  Did both of them ride the horse or did just one--my guess is just Aggie, as all the adults I know who ride horses are women.  Did they catch the fish together somewhere?  Did a stag appear outside of their house one early morning or evening, captivating Bill and Aggie with its beauty?  Was anything the writer wrote published?  What music did they play on the guitar?  The hands manipulating a human figure:  were Bill and Aggie amateur voo-doo practitioners? 

Where has their story taken them?  Are they still together?  Did they so infuriate the friend or relative who had this that he or she got rid of it?  Did one of them die?  Did both of them die and one of their children, sorting through their belongings, put this out, thinking someone could use the frame for a postcard?  

Lots of questions.  But sometimes it's fun to wonder about people's lives and stories.  Usually there's not as much to go on as there is with Bill and Aggie.  Where is that woman picking up a coffee at Dunkin' Donuts going next?  What is the man thinking about while waiting for the Metro doors to open?  What will the kids playing on the swings in the playground do when they become adults?  Of course, we can ask ourselves the same questions.  In some ways we have as much to go on now about our lives in the future as we have on Bill and Aggie's life.  Perhaps it's worth picking up a pencil or pen and to draw, no matter how crudely, the things that make our lives to help understand what is important to us, just as Bill and Aggie did.