Cary was a simple woman. She often marveled at the needs of
her contemporaries that seemed to crave so very much to create the illusion
that they were happy -- fancy clothes, long cruises and big houses. They needed pools and bragging rights, art
ownership and club membership. Not that there was anything inherently wrong
with these things; she simply did want them or need them to define her.
If she wanted a day of unbridled contentment, Cary would
cruise the thrift and consignment shops within a 50-mile radius of her modest
home. Often she went with a friend. But just as often she went alone, seeking out
a treasure of low-end but lovely vintage jewelry. She knew that she often overlooked other
treasures as she poked among the beads and tangled chains of other people’s
cast-offs so lately she had been schooling herself to rattle among the coat
hangers for a pretty jacket or look on the shelves for a pleasing candle holder
or vase for the flowers she grew in her garden.
She rarely found anything she wanted.
Often she came home with a desire to clean out her own congested
cupboards and closets, to shed possessions instead of acquiring more.
She would frequently see something that reminded her of a
friend or relative, living or dead. And
she treasured these little trips into the psyche of the things that
please. She believed utterly in the
messages she found; a ceramic owl, a hummingbird pin, a ruby glass cardinal, a
crystal angel -- each calling up a private and personal memory, a bit of wisdom
or humor. She was reassured that her
friends, past and present were with her even though she may be alone. These forays were almost spiritual, and they refreshed
her in ways that were hard to explain to her family and friends.
Thus it was a startling thing that she found -- crammed in
the back of a dusty shelf in a hole-in-the-wall consignment shop. While owls and angels are a common motif, a
dog sled motif was decidedly rare. But
there it was, tagged with a pasteboard ticket on a string looped around the neck
of a carved soapstone musher. It was damaged -- one could see one dog’s muzzle was
chipped, and the leading edge of the sled was rough with a broken spot. The tag read “as is.”
Cary knew immediately that this strange sculpture, imperfect
as it was, was destined to go home with her.
She knew mushers. And it just so
happened that, at the moment, she was following the Iditarod, that iconic race
through the Alaskan wilderness that was in its final grueling days. She was privy to some of their challenges and
knew of their courage and, sometimes, their heartbreak. Like the little soapstone statue she held in
her hands, sometimes they were hurt in the journey but still basically intact.
Her mind drifted back almost 30 years to memories of her friend, Jason. He was a hardscrabble boy whose love of dog-powered
sports started when he hooked up his mongrel, Bo, to his toboggan to gather
maple sap in the waning days of Vermont winters. Back then, his knowledge of
the word “mush” was solely of the gluey mash that he ate day after day for his
morning repast. Now the word “mush”
meant that the snow hooks that anchored his wooden sled to the ground were
being released and the yipping, yowling pack of his beloved Siberian Huskies
could hit the trail.
After all these years, Jason was training for the CopperBasin 300, a qualifying race for Iditarod dreamers. Cary knew, because of him,
that this was a unique sport – really more of a lifestyle -- that it was
ancient and elemental; a man and dogs mutually dependent. The whole purity of
the endeavor was an anachronism in an era of social media, smart phones and beyond. What were her musher friends telling her now with
this treasure showing up so unexpectedly in her hands at very end of the
Iditarod? Why had they appeared on this dusty shelf in the form of a tiny
soapstone trinket for her to find?
She pondered the message of perseverance in the face of
heartbreak, of work and dreams and elemental connections as she climbed into
her dusty car to head to the next thrift shop. But she knew that anything else
from here on out would not compare to the tissue-wrapped treasure now in her
purse.
The gods had already spoken for this day.
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