Dispossessed, Reprised.

A few years ago, I count backward now and can confirm that it was 2010, I was in New York City for a conference. It was mid-May and the weather was unpredictable, as it always is in spring. Or, more accurately, as it always is always.

I was on my own in the city and ventured out in a wild and gusty rain storm to feed myself dinner. I had stepped no more than 100 feet from my hotel when I encountered the first. I noticed it, but dismissed it. Until I saw the second only a couple of strides later. And then I returned to the initial specimen and began to document.

 

In my five-block walk, I came upon one after another and another and another. These objects, so carelessly discarded by their users, spoke to me. The begged me to capture their abandonment. And so I did. In the dim light of dusk, with the camera on my smartphone.

They told me that our relevance on this earth is fleeting. And, that if it matters to us, we must not bend to stronger wills, shatter under pressure, sag when we are defeated, or, most importantly, maybe, allow ourselves to be so easily forgotten.

Or maybe they are just a bunch of broken umbrellas.