One person’s trash . . .

Some people read palms. Some read tea leaves, or chakras, or head bumps, or crystal balls. Some read ‘Twilight,’ but their reasons are simply unfathomable. I read trash. Come into my tent, tell me what you will throw yourself under a truck to rescue from the street, and I’ll tell you secrets you didn’t know you had. I’ll even tell you secrets you don’t have. That’s how good I am.

Most so-called wise men prescribe an olfactory approach to travel ‘-‘- stop and smell the roses. Don’t blast through life so fast that you miss the many little pleasures on the way. Others prescribe a panoramic approach; they urge to look around you as you venture out, take in all the sights. These nose and eye-based suggestions are fine, if you like only scratching the surface of human experience, but I strongly advocate a more interactive, tactile approach. The real glimpses into the lives of the people you share the world with are not found in glinting skyscrapers, and are definitely not lurking in fragrant gardens. These whispers of strangers’ lives can be found, if you wish to find them, on every sidewalk or crumpled in every gutter. Every person leaves a residual trail of junk behind them, a constantly regenerating time capsule streaming out like the tail of a comet. Or like dryer lint, which is how most people see it. Junk, they call it, trash. Are archeological artifacts trash too? To me, a lost stuffed animal or dropped grocery list can reveal just as much as an ancient woven basket or fragment of chipped pottery. Just looking at the sidewalk can provide a slew of private experiences turned unexpectedly and instantly public: angry letters to a boyfriend, grateful thank-you notes and irate admonitions of a parking faux pas are all on display. These types of everyday detritus can open up rare, exciting and often hilarious views directly into other people’s lives. I walk down the street mole-like, with my eyes on the sidewalk, and I am forever surprised to see people ignoring what I would consider true gems lying on the street.

Many of my most prized possessions are found notes, like the one featuring an in-class, note-passing conversation between two girls, which includes such sparkling prose as ‘So, pharmacy today?’ ‘are you going to tell your mom?’ ‘Planned Parenthood can give you these abortion pill thingies’ and ‘only ten more minutes left! Woot!’ That’s my favorite part of this find, that, yes, I may be pregnant, and yes, I may have some horrible decisions and hardships ahead, but at least class is finally over! I love this kind of slow motion voyeurism and the myriad flavors; funny, poignant and surprising, that it has to offer. And while it’s true that the trash each person leaves behind reveals a portion of their lives, the converse is equally true ‘-‘- that what each person chooses to pick up speaks volumes about their personality, philosophy and how filthy their hands are.

My friend Megan will dive headfirst into the path of barreling traffic, spelunk into the moist depths of the locker room or thrust her arm elbow deep into mud to salvage a single discarded penny. She will fight you to the point of drawing blood for a dime. I once hid a quarter from her in my bra, and the results were devastating. Yes, one day she’ll be crushed by an eighteen-wheeler, and she already bruises her ego daily, but embarrassed, odorous or paraplegic, she still collects up to $50 a year. An untrained eye might scold her for being fixated on money, might beg her to please relax the Gollum-like change obsession. But a more attuned reading identifies an optimist, who can see opportunities in what everyone else blithely overlooks, and is not afraid to work hard to reap the benefits.

Driving with my mom, you’re always running the risk of a four-alarm stuffed animal spotting. ‘Bunny in the left lane!’ she’ll bark, ‘All hands on deck! Go go go, this is not a drill!’ Following her mad orders, I’ll be dispatched out into traffic, dodging the swerving cars to retrieve a mud-stained, rain-soaked, stuffed animal. My mom coos over the lost toy, picturing an inconsolable toddler screaming for her bun-bun, then takes the doll home for the tough love spa treatment: a trip through the washing machine and dryer, and a swift beating to restore its pre-SUV-flattening fluffiness. Beaming with pride at her heroic rescue, she then bestows the stuffed animal, made unique by virtue of its ordeal and its mysterious past, on one of my nieces. Yes, her compulsion is totally irrational, and my life is constantly put at risk, but her chosen trash fixation reveals my mom as person whose compassionate mother instinct to rescue, nurture and love is so great, it now extends to even inanimate objects.

Boston University, with its thousands of students, is a perfect place to start your very own junk obsession. Yank your nose out of those foolish roses, turn your back to the buildings and look down today.