Treasure

Photo 52, Week 7:  Treasure

A box full of treasures, actually.
Pieces of my story.

Like pieces of a quilt.
An ocean waves pattern, to be exact.
A pattern that mirrored the life that had arrived
back to an old new home after many travels.

Stops in Turkey.

Liberia.  To visit a brother, a sister-in-law, and nephews who were scarcely old enough to remember me.

The elephant from Thailand that returned with me
 to meet a horse from home.

(A few years later my husband would use them to introduce our newborn
to the animal kingdom, amid my protest that THAT's not what an elephant and horse look like!
Don't tell him that, he doesn't know ANYTHING!)

The Russian metryoshka dolls that reveal more of my heritage,
as well as my two years of life in a place with a strong Russian presence.

Ahh, yes.  The Uzbek chai drinkers.
Just to the north of my Turkmenistan home, they drank on a Turkmen carpet.

And from Pakistan, a bell made by Afghans.

I've been going through our guest room this week, tackling the bulk of our storage,
 and rediscovering many treasures with memories both sweet and bittersweet.
It's time for some of them to have new homes.
But not the ones in my shadow box.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal.
Instead store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Matthew 6:19-21