“People who look through keyholes are apt to get the idea that most things are keyhole shaped.”

— Author Unknown

The irony of picking up trash is that the view is pretty good.

Cattail alley.

Yesterday, donning my waders, gloves and Solv bag, I headed for a trash pickup around the creek behind our house.

The first thing I noticed was how much everything had grown up in the wetland. The cattails were easily a foot or two over my head. The two-foot shrubs were now four-feet. The beavers had made the swamp more swampy, sinking me lower. Even the ducks rose higher into the air as as I passed through. It was a limited, yet unlimited view.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t see much trash on the animal paths. The litter cluttered only the human animal paths – bridges, sidewalks, and roads. We are an obscenely dirty species.

Bridge to nowhere.

After an hour plus, and trash bag full, I stumbled on something new. An old foot bridge. To nowhere. It crossed the creek near our house, or at least did at one time.

I couldn’t help but stop and ponder what use it once served, and when in the past it had stopped being useful. Maybe a cattle bridge. Maybe a human bridge. No matter how old, it was new to me.

It’s a sad bridge. Resting, yearning, on one side of the creek, it never crosses. Like a driver peering through a window, or a person looking at a screen, never able to reach through the glass to the other side. Always longing to go where it cannot.

Pulling ourselves off the couch is not the easiest thing to do. Putting ourselves in a new, uncomfortable situation is even more difficult. But the rewards are huge.

There really are discoveries waiting for us right outside our door. But only if we put ourselves in our neighbor’s shoes or take a different route through our neighborhood. Small things, not noticed from a couch or seen from the window of a passing car, become big things on foot.

Not sure where this little guy fits. Just one of the little pieces of “trash” that is waiting for us to discover.

At least from my vantage point, that’s a better view.

Yesterday’s gift of time … Picked up trash in the wetland behind our house. It was a nice view.