168 three diptych by Max Greenstreet
Wandering through town today, mobs of tourists here for the long Fourth of July weekend, a man hailed me and said, “Do you know what time it is?”
I looked at the watch I have affixed to my basket and told him the time: 11:47. He then looked at his smart phone, smiled, turned to his wife and said, “You win the bet.” And then they walked away.
“Excuse me?” I said, calling after the man and his wife. “What was the bet?”
The man turned to me and said, “She bet you’d have the correct time, I bet you wouldn’t.”
“What a curious bet,” I said, half-frowning and half-smiling at the man and his wife. “I wonder why she…”
But then they walked away, so I said no more.
Now as it happens, the watch on my basket is one I found on the ground while walking to town a few years ago. Perfectly good watch, rather old, but keeps perfect time and is just the thing to have affixed to my basket.
This encounter with the rude man from out of town got me thinking of other things I’ve found, including so many pairs of dark glasses that we have a small basket full of them to lend to visitors who lost or forgot theirs or for us to use when we misplace the current pair we’re using. My favorite sunglasses are ultra-comfortable and highly effective and stylish in a pleasingly understated way and no doubt cost their previous owner, the person who left them on the beach, a pretty penny.
Then there is my big orange and black hammer, a most excellent tool I found on the street in Berkeley. I was riding my bicycle and saw the lovely thing lying in the middle of the road. I often found tools in the road while riding my bicycle around Berkeley and Sacramento. Excellent tools. I have a very good crescent wrench and two screw drivers and an expensive wood chisel I found while riding my bike. People drop things and other people pick them up.
I also have lots of rocks I’ve found. I used to be an avid collector of rocks and driftwood, and I still occasionally bring home a stone or a hunk of sculptured wood, but I am no longer the avid collector I once was. My newest stone is not quite as big as a walnut, perfectly egg-shaped, and pale gray. I found the beauty on the beach at Elk a couple weeks ago, and now this stone egg is one of my two carrying stones—one in each of the front pockets of my pants.
I very much doubt that the man who bet his wife I would have the wrong time is a collector of stones or carries stones in his pockets. I also suspect he would not be much interested in hearing about my relationship to stones, which I find fascinating. As it happens, most people I know do not find my relationship to stones even a little bit interesting. However, other people who collect stones and carry one or more of them in their pockets love hearing about my relationship to stones because my story is kin to their stories about their relationships to stones.
One day I was buying groceries at Corners and I fished in my pocket for dimes and pennies and came up with a handful of coins and one of my carrying stones, a roundish orange brown thing also not quite as big as a walnut. The checker, a woman with curly brown hair wearing a turquoise scarf said, “Nice stone,” and then fished into her pocket and brought forth a similar-sized stone, dark brown.
Lots of people carry or wear small crystals, but non-crystal stone carriers are a different sort and tend to be people I instantly relate to. We share an understanding that can’t really be put into words about non-crystal stones, especially the ones we choose to pick up and carry for a time. We are not opposed to crystals. We probably have crystals, too, at home, but this affinity we have for non-crystals…well, ineffable.
Anyway, I like to tell people who also carry stones (and those who reveal themselves to be interested in that sort of thing) that having been a stone carrier since I was a little boy—though no one else I knew while I was growing up did such a thing—I was thrilled when I read a passage in a book called Wisdom & Power, wherein the Lakota holy man Fool’s Crow said he was a stone carrier (non-crystal) and that there were some people who needed to carry stones in their pockets to be fully healthy and happy. He said these kinds of people understood, perhaps without understanding how or why they understood, that the stones connected them directly to Great Spirit.
When I tell other stone carriers this story, you should see the smiles on their faces. Having their mostly secret habit validated by a genius holy man is some of the best news a stone carrier can ever get.
And then there are cats. Nearly all the cats I’ve ever had, and I’ve had lots of cats, found me, which seems like the flip side of finding something but is really the same thing. Those stones, in truth, found me. They called out in the way stones call out, “Hey, I see you. Here I am.” And you look down, and here is the stone, either alone on the sand or in a big mob of other stones, but something makes it stand out for you, and you reach down and pick the stone up and the energy of Great Spirit flows into you from the stone and you know, without knowing how you know, that this stone is going to travel with you for a while.