There's nothing profoundly serendipitous about it, I know. If you've inhabited a space for eight years, you're bound to stumble upon all manners of souvenirs when you decide to vacate it. They assume the form of objects that had been existing on the sidelines of your consciousness. And while you chide yourself for giving into materialism, for having accumulated an over-abundance of things, especially those having no ostensible utility, you're also forced to reconcile with the fact that some memories are lodged so deeply within your subconscious they can only be recalled through sensual re-exposure to an affiliated entity.

So this thing-object that had become peripheral to your daily life becomes a wily talisman. It lurks between the pages of a dusty book, or sits innocently among a pile of medical reports, or hibernates within the antechamber of a desk drawer. Because I'm already in a state of heightened emotion, given the fragility of the present moment, every such talismanic encounter acquires extended dimensions.