I have a beer bottle cap in the pocket of my spring coat that I worry with my thumb and forefinger. I’m not sure how long the bottle cap has been there. I find it with my fingers, and then I forget about it again.
When I walk the black dog Shady on the limerock Peace Trail my hands go to my pockets. I never see the bottle cap because it doesn’t leave my pocket, but I know what it looks like because I worry it so often these days. I can feel the serrated ridges of the cap, and I rub and rub my thumb along those ridges. This bottle cap must be wrapped in foil because the top is not smooth, but rough from the foil. I imagine the foil is golden, and as I walk, the pad of my forefinger really works the stubborn golden foil. I can see it perfectly.
Last night on the Peace Trail, walking the black dog in the dark, I took the bottle cap from my pocket, I’m not sure why, and held it in the light of my headlamp.
What I saw stopped me on the trail. It wasn’t a bottle cap at all. It was an acorn top. A large flattish one, rubbed now to a dull patina. The pad of my thumb fit snugly in the concavity where the acorn had once fit. I must have found the acorn top in the woods, in a different season maybe, and finding it impressive, pocketed it like a kid would. For the rest of my walk my mind reeled with the discovery. Now there is this new thing to worry.
I’m Chris Fink and that’s my perspective.
