Taking things seriously

I'm reading Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes' book "Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance." It's of course led me to look around the voodoo bungalow for things that might have significance not easily assessed from just looking at them. Here are three on my desk:

1. A twisted pair of gold-wire spectacle frames that Luke left in my apartment the night he left to break up with his long-time girlfriend.

2. A fist-sized, smooth round rock painted like a lady bug with a small signature "You're nice." It was made by the mom of a friend when I was just a kid. She was an artist, a mother of 8, and she made some pocket change doing these bugaboos, as she called them. I think of her now and realize that this rock is a small cry for help.

3. A blue glass globe, referred to sharply as a "cabbage" by the darling friend who gave it to me for Christmas one year. We both know that we are made of glass, are blue, and despite all odds (and being perched precariously on a cluttered desk) we remain unshattered.

The bag of whole wheat alphabet pretzels speaks for itself. Kind of literally.