it just takes a bit of sunshine

I traveled Friday, a day off, some things on my mind.  I found

myself sitting at a little auction in Independence, Wisconsin.

Maybe thirty chairs set up in tidy rows in the front yard of a home 

that would itself be auctioned off at 12:30.  Most of many years of

collecting packed in boxes, unloaded and sold one by one.  The

collector now living in a nursing home.  We gathered as this small

community, bidding on one after another lot.  On the surface, a very

solemn event...dispersing a lifetime of a home, carried off, collections 

divided many times.  My number 36 was raised, very select choices...

one of her cow creamers, several of her hen on a nest, two of her milk

bottles~~ one from Augusta meant to add to my own collection.  One

bid after another, I spent a morning as part of this group of bidders,

dispersing a lifetime.  But I know I will love the milk bottle I won -- as will

the person who eventually picks up the little cow creamer & takes her home.

Sure, this is all stuff....but stuff certain to hold stories & maybe a memory or two.

I will remember that chilly morning on October 17 ~~ sitting on a folding 

chair, raising my number, adding ever so selectively to my own story,

my own memories.

It only takes a bit of sunshine reflected just right to make a rainbow.  

As I carefully packed my treasures, folding them into my raincoat,

I knew I carried off with me pieces of someone's life.  Little shimmers,

little fragments of color, little stories.