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Misplaced Magic

 Found: One red leather photo album with photos from 1985-1986.


On Saturday, when I headed out for my morning run, I noticed in the neighborhood tiny library in front of the fire station a bound red leather photo album. I opened the album to find a few loose photos fall out. The photos were yellowed and worn around the edges, revealing their age. These are not the digital photos of today. These are the photos from the days of negatives, handled delicately - pictures precious and rare. Carefully, I set the album back in the tiny library and headed out on my run.

As I ran I reflected on this album. Why would an album with precious old photos be stuck in a tiny library? Who owned this album? Where did it come from?

My running path takes me along the Spring Creek Trail which is the pathway of many in Fort Collins. It is an interstate of runners, walkers, and bikers. It is also a main thoroughfare for the unhoused. I wondered if this album had fallen out of a cart or basket of an unhoused person. A good Samaritan had scooped it up and set it carefully in the library for the owner to backtrack and find their precious photos. There it sat waiting for its owner.

I wondered if the people on these crisp pages had died. Family or friends had no use for these photos and thought the tiny library a good place to pass along the beautiful leather book.

Had this couple broken up? Hearts had been broken, and the despair of looking back on these happy images too much to bear, but too precious to be thrown away? The red leather album wrapped in broken hearts had been passed along via the tiny library to new hearts and new love.

Sweaty and tired, I stopped back by the tiny library on my way home. Part of me hoped the owner would have come by and retrieved it. Yet, there it sat. Exactly where I left it. 

Of course, I decided this was a sign for me to take it. 

As we thumbed through it, Nic and I wondered if I could reverse Google the photos and find the owners. Nic determined it was not a very interesting family. There were only photos of people traveling. There were no naked people, or any photos capturing anything salacious or interesting. He had really hoped for more.

Amanda and I wondered if I could return the album. How invasive would it be to look these people up and learn their names, where they lived, and find out the story behind the year of travel across America. Tiny clues peppered the pages: names of people they met along the way, places they visited. But nowhere are their names. The images begin in Massachusetts, pop into Jamaica, down to California, and just as quickly as they begin, they end at Dana Point.

Daniel and I decided it contained magic. Clearly, the most logical choice.

It is not every day that you find an old, leatherbound photo album filled with pictures from the 80s. It was clearly a sign that something magical was about to happen.

Because if it is not magical I am now the owner of a red leatherbound photo album filled with old pictures of people I do not know. If it is magical, I am now the keeper of an amazing secret that is just about to burst forward with awesomeness.

I choose to believe the second. 

However, as I wait for the magic to erupt and my life to change, I am crippled with worries that someone is missing their precious photos of their precious family. Am I a magical thief? A thief of history? A thief of a family?

Truth be told, I FOUND this photo album. It was in the free library. That means, 'Please take me. I need a home.' 

Unless it was lost, or stolen, or taken, or magically misplaced to begin its journey in a new life.

Found: misplaced magic. 



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