Shouldn't…but Do

Garbage cans are good things.

I am referring to garbage carts, the cans from days of yore that evolved plastic lids and wheels.  Left at the curb, these are not the household way-station cans that speak to process, but to items, in bag or bulk, kicked to the curb.

By the time something makes it to my curb, it cannot be reused,  or recycled, it is trash – broken, soiled constituents – of something that once was.

Consider the power of the can – to  receive objects solidified out of the flow of life.  Things chosen to be unchosen.

Garbage cans are not compost bags.  The premise of compost is transformation. A  garbage can?  Disposal.  Clean, punctuated ending – not metabolized for different use, a different day – but literal landfill – buried deep, layered, compressed and covered over, soulful detritus.

You can know someone by their trash.  It worked with the ancient Anasazi  of the American Southwest.  Trash piles astride their cliff dwellings provide a treasure trove to archeologists studying their habits, diseases, diet.

Seems like people nowadays are the same.  Hang around someone long enough, you’ll get to know what they buried, what is eating them, and what they too devour–and dispose of.

Garbage cans hold their own, and let it go.