Object Lesson

Hannah Henry is having a photography show of discarded things. The image to advertise the series is a sole strappy sandal, darkly lit, maybe once beloved, then, unneeded. 

I was thinking about all those things I have been collecting (we are all curators of our own closets) that may have once been treasured and now are tossed. It is the wonder of the photographer's eye that I stare at the image, my thoughts drifting from shoe, to my closet, to the nation that was bent on spending till the last shoe was sold. 

Neighborhoods are littered with foreclosed houses, some abandoned by their owners who had no choice but to walk away from their homes. Homes slightly beyond the grasp of a mortgage payment. But, I imagine, with perfectly placed walk-in closets, holding rows of strappy sandals, paid for with money that didn't exist on the promise of value that wasn't there fueled by the intoxicating lure of over-confidence and greed. 

The photograph is beautiful. Our nation's story is ugly.