Here are four rocks I photographed and made into shiny thick coasters in May, 2021. I sent the coasters to my longtime friend Suzanne, who has recently begun to feel like an artist herself.
The heart rock is one of my bigger ones, about 4x3. It is an unusually heavy one, which was perfect at the time. I felt all hearts were heavy in May 2020. I left it on a trail post at Carey Lake, and I imagine a lonely hiker picking it up (It was Covid time, everyone was lonely).
Then John, Just John is a more recent drop. In April, I left him near the entrance to the local Moose Lodge. He sat there quite some time. Having been dropped and broken in half the month before, he was not quite himself. All through April, he watched the lodgers come and go each weekend night, and he questioned his worth and was sure nobody was going to love him, ever. It was at least three weeks he waited, then went home with a Moose, who drifted out reluctantly at closing time, and furrowed him away in a pocket. I imagine he stayed in that pocket until the agitation of the washing machine jerked him out. Now he lives there at the bottom of the machine, waiting again, to be found, this time as a plain-scrubbed rock who thinks of itself as John.
Ms. Thing, well she was hot. I left her outside a grocery store where I often see employees sitting on the curb, smoking. I wonder if they dream about angry customers fighting over masks. She was adored and scooped up the same day, and I imagine her on a bathroom countertop where she watches someone brush their teeth twice a day. She is always straining to see herself in the mirror.
Tiny red heart, well, that one could be anywhere. I gave it to my ex as a token of my forever feelings.
It’s probably been thrown down an alley. Hearts are resilient.