You know how there are things you drive by all the time without really seeing them?
There's a place on the sidewalk between my house and the mall that I've driven past a thousand times. It's a little platform with something sticking up from it and something fluttery wrapped around it, like a tattered flag.
Without ever putting words to it, I've always assumed it was a little voodoo shrine. That's not completely illogical considering I used to live in a place with shrines everywhere you looked, enough that I eventually looked past them as they became part of the larger landscape.
But this is suburbia. In America.
This week, I walked past that spot on the sidewalk for the first time and was surprised to see it was not a shrine at all, but a broken utility pole with warning tape wrapped around it.
Another piece put in the puzzle of what my surroundings look like. Another piece of the African me lost.
1 comment:
I like this. I understand what you mean about loss, too- almost as though you would rather have not known the truth of what the thing really was.
Perspective can open new doors for us but it usually closes a few in the learning process.
This was nicely written, and I am glad to have just stumbled across your blog.
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