The Wandering Bark

I realized yesterday that I have a funny habit.

If I notice a package in the foyer of my building, I always check to see if it's addressed to me.

It doesn't matter whether I'm leaving or returning, and I've already checked the recipient once already and seen that it's been addressed instead to a Thomas in 5D or a Mr. and Mrs. C in 2A.

I check it again.

I don't know who I'm expecting to hear from, or what it is I'm hoping to receive. I think, more than the gift, it's the element of surprise that I love, because who knows, maybe someone thought I'd love a pair of shoes from Zappos; or perhaps, in the early hours of the morning, I slept walked from my lofted bed and ordered that book I've been wanting to read from Amazon.

But sometimes the packages in my foyer are of the brown-paper-and-string variety. Those are my favorite.

The packages that were wrapped with care and littered with stamps to insure its safe arrival at its destination. It's then that I like to imagine, that I've been sent a mysterious mission from Cairo, or a vintage gown, or even a stack of old, torrid love letters time released from an unknown location to mine; a first edition of a Jane Austen novel. Or maybe just an old sweater that used to belong to my dad, or some old, forgotten relic from my parents childhood. I love the brown paper packages that arrive in my foyer, and I often wonder if the receiver knows how lucky they are.

The last brown paper package I received were contact lenses, which is practical, but intensely anti-climactic. Although, I guess they could be getting contact lenses too...

God, I love old, special things. I like drinking out of Ball Jars,

old photo booth pictures,

...vintage burlap put to good use...

and chivalry.

But most of all I like the possibility of the packages in my foyer, and the adventures that could follow if one was magically addressed to me.