Dear Kate,
I'm remembering a road trip that Ingrid and I took a few years ago. We stopped at this little pulloff somewhere in Tennessee, the sort of spot that only she would notice, and she took a polaroid of me there, leaning against the station wagon. She walked over to an abandoned video store, sleeping quietly amid a parking lot filled with its own wreckage. It was obvious she was on one of her missions, so I let her rummage. She picked up and then rejected some old broken display racks, a case of decomposing motel soaps and a wicker table missing one of its legs. Finally she found her prize for the day: A framed picture of a Doublemint gum advertisement from the 60's, faded, punctured, its glass missing and its frame wobbly (but still more or less intact).
It seems like everything we buy, everything we bring into our lives, is produced with the intention that it will fall apart in a few years. Or less. One of the many lessons Ingrid left me with is the idea of only bringing home things that are already broken.
-Ellen