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A Thousand Pieces of Litter

By Elrena Evans

“M

om, what’s this picture?”

I freeze, unsure how to answer. My eight-year-old is flipping through the photo gallery on my phone, looking for pictures of herself, when she comes across a picture she can’t place.

“Oh. That’s just a picture I took,” I say after a breath. “You know how I like to take lots of pictures.”

She hands me back the phone. “Yeah. So you can remember things,” she says.

So I can remember things.

••• The idea begins as a whisper that barely registers in my conscious mind. Persistent, it grows: To return to a place, a place of great pain. To bring something with me. And to leave something there for my younger self to find.

“Is this a terrible idea?” I ask a friend. She doesn’t think it’s a terrible idea. And, “I would go with you,” she says.

As soon as I hear her say those words, the idea becomes a plan.

••• Of course, my friend can’t actually come with me. Not in the middle of a global pandemic.

Not without a mask and six feet of separation.

She offers, but I decline. I don’t think I can bear the visible reminders of how coronavirus has upended our world on top of the memories I am going to revisit. It’s too much. Grief upon grief upon grief, tumbling all around me like Jenga blocks. Instead, we decide to connect via phone.

The night before I go, I e-mail another friend about what I am planning to do.

I want to inhabit the space, I write. I want

to stand in that space and remember what it felt like to be more afraid than I’d ever been in my life. And I want to stand in that space now and feel what it feels like to have survived.

After a moment, I add: I have something I’m going to leave there. Just something very small. Something for my younger self to find.

She writes back: I will be praying for your pilgrimage.

I want to stand in that I think I’ve always space and remember been aware, on what it felt like to be some level, of the more afraid than I’d connection between ever been in my life. my body and the And I want to stand places it inhabits.

Memory and meaning in that space now and feel what it feels like to are intrinsically tied have survived. to physical place for me. I was the student who agonized when a final exam was scheduled to take place in a different room, because I remember more things about a subject in the room where I learned them. I am better

at solving equations in the math room. I am better at writing essays in the English room. If I had any skill at drawing whatsoever, I would be better at drawing in the art room.

I see this connection between memory and place in each of my five children, too. Once, when we were out on a family bike ride, my sixyear-old suddenly stopped pedaling and said, “I have a headache, Mommy. I want to go home right now.” And I realized we were just about to turn on to the street where his older brother accidentally knocked over his stroller, years before, and gave him a concussion.

Even when we don’t remember, the body remembers.

My body remembers.

••• So I go to the place I remember. The sun is bright, the air is cold. The last time I was here, it wasn’t as cold. The last time I was here, sweat ran in a hot trickle down my back. The last time I was here, I was afraid.

I stand in that space, in the past and the present. I remember what it felt like to be more afraid than I’d ever been in my life. And I feel what it feels like to have survived.

The last time I was here, I was afraid. I am still afraid. But less so.

I set my small offering on the ground.

••• Afterward, I climb up on a nearby embankment and wrap my arms around myself. I’m shivering, and not just from the cold. I clutch my phone to my ear.

“Did you leave what you needed to leave?” my friend asks.

“I did,” I say.

“I know I’m not actually sending this back in time to my younger self,” I continue. “I don’t actually believe things can travel back in time.

I’m not crazy.” But even I can hear the shift in pitch at the end of my sentence, a sentence unsure if it is a statement or a question. I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy?

“I know all I’m really doing is creating litter for someone else to pick up,” I say. “And I’m going to pick up a thousand pieces of litter to make up for it.”

I mean it, too. And I will count every piece. The spreadsheet-making, number-crunching, dataloving part of me is soothed by this scheme— to walk through the world, counting pieces of litter.

“Maybe litter is just someone’s story,” my friend says.

And I feel my breath catch in my chest. “Yes,” I whisper. My arms wrap more tightly. I look at the litter on the ground around me—a half-drunk bottle of water, an empty carton of cigarettes. I think about the people who dropped them, who left them there, and I think about what they were leaving behind. Maybe litter is just someone’s story. Someone’s way of saying, I was here. I mattered. My story mattered.

I will never look at trash on the side of the road in the same way again.

And I can imagine myself having a conversation with someone else, someone less given to symbol and significance, mystery and meaning. Litter is just someone’s story, I would say. “That’s ridiculous,” this person might reply.

“Litter is trash left by people who are too lazy to clean it up.” Okay, I would say. Then that is part of their story. Maybe they were just too lazy to throw it away. Or maybe they couldn’t see the beauty that surrounded them. Maybe they didn’t feel that working to preserve that beauty was worth it. Maybe they didn’t feel like they were worth it.

Eventually, I come back to myself, sitting on an embankment on a cold, sunny day. I unwrap my arms. I climb down. I take a deep breath

and try to fix this moment in my mind: the place, the space. The feel of the air on my skin, and the sunlight on my face. The sound of my friend’s voice on the phone. The litter on the ground around me.

As I walk away, I imagine my younger self, just about to come upon what I’ve left for her to find. I close my eyes and briefly re-inhabit her space. I try to give her courage. I want her to know what was left is from me.

Maybe litter is just someone’s story.

Someone’s way of saying, I was here. I mattered. My story mattered.

And I whisper to her, back through the years: You’re going to be okay.

•••

I head out into the world on my ongoing pilgrimage to pick up a thousand pieces of litter. A thousand pieces of other people’s stories. Other people’s joys. Other people’s pain.

Other people’s love and loss and longing. Other people’s water bottles, dropped on the ground after a long bike ride or a day at the park or a terrifying fight. Other people’s wrappers and

receipts and chewed-up pencils. A piece of styrofoam. A scratched-off lottery ticket. A torn dollar bill.

I think of the things we leave behind us, all around the world. What was dropped in a flash of fear? What slipped through the fingers, unnoticed? What fell to the ground and, in that moment of overwhelming pain and loss, couldn’t be retrieved?

Some people have statues and plaques in famous parks—monuments that say to the world, I was here. And some people have empty cigarette packs in the dust on the side of the road. They say, I was here, too. It all matters. It all matters. Because it is all someone’s story.

I pick up the litter. I throw it away. I honor a thousand stories.

A Thousand Pieces of Story

A Conversation with Christie Purifoy and Elrena Evans, author and editor of Paper&String Black Barn Conversations is a series hosted by the Black Barn Collective, dedicated to the intersection of faith and art.

In our first Conversation of the series, Christie and Elrena discuss the role of story in the creation of art, and why all of our stories matter. The Conversation will include a Q&A with the audience. Join us to reflect on how making and receiving art can help us reconnect the fragments of our own stories.

Saturday, August 29th, 10am EST • Click here to RSVP Tickets: $10 • Each ticket comes with a complimentary issue of Paper&String, for you to keep or to give to a friend!

While the Black Barn Collective is rooted in Christian faith and practice, our workshops and gatherings are open to guests of any faith background or none at all. All God’s beloved children are welcome here.

S’Mores Trifle

By Anna Grist

“Y

ou made Daniel drool.”

This text, referencing the text writer’s teenage son, was sent in our small group chat after I posted a photo of two s’mores trifles, freshly made. The response was absolutely Pavlovian, as I’ve made this dessert for virtually every single gathering we’ve had over the past few years. There is something about

anticipating someone’s signature dish that is both an ode to comfort food, and a celebration of tradition and personality. We know Pastor Dave will bring something he’s had in the smoker all day (like pork belly, sweet as candy) and Harmke will make her generous mojitos to hand out immediately upon our arrival, and the mango and cilantro salsa we all love and can never truly replicate (the secret lies in the Canadian Tire canning section spices, she will tell you).

I prepared the many layers of this trifle yesterday as an act of love, a delightful summer staple to bring joy to friends. Whether you make this simply for your own brood, or for a wider audience (if where you live it is safe to gather), I pray it will call you to appreciate the simplicity of bringing joy through food and delighting in the culinary creations of friends.

Subscribe to Paper&String for free downloadable recipe cards every month!

Pausing To Look Back

By Amy Knorr

Y

ou may never have walked a labyrinth, but you have probably gone on a long walk or a hike. It is easy to fixate on the end goal of finishing the hike or getting to the center of the labyrinth. But in both cases, there is an invitation to let go of the goal of reaching the end and savor the journey that gets you there.

What if the journey became as important as the end result? What if your process was every bit as real as whatever you produced? Somewhere in that intersection lies a deep breath and a pause that widens eyes, opens hearts, and results in a life that embraces both peace and passion.

Subscribe to Paper&String to access our downloadable spiritual practices packet every month!

Your full subscription to the August issue of Paper&String also includes: p A meditation on a garden as a journey on one place,

by Christie Purifoy p A review of Jan Karon’s Mitford Series, by Lisa-Jo Baker p A reflection on “Fantastic Truths and Where to Find Them,” by Anna Grist p A playlist of songs for a journey from Christie Purifoy p A recipe for one of the best homemade pizzas you’ll ever taste from Jon Purifoy p Stories of pilgrimage from Anna Grist and Amy Hinman p A benediction for your journey from Elrena Evans p Reader-submitted responses and photos

Plus a downloadable spiritual practice packet, recipe cards, full-color printables, and more!

Subscribe to Paper&String!

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