THE PASSAGE OF TIME
A Journal Entry.
There are people who collect things because they are valuable.
There are people who collect things because they are fashionable.
And there are people who collect things because they tell stories.
For much of my life, I never quite understood why certain objects spoke to me while others did not. I knew I was drawn to old things. I knew I preferred antiques to modern furniture, old books to new ones, and forgotten places to crowded attractions. Yet I never stopped to consider what connected all of these interests.
Only recently did I realize that the common thread is not darkness, nor history, nor even nostalgia.
It is time.
I am fascinated by the passage of time.
Not time as measured by clocks or calendars, but time as revealed through the things it leaves behind.
A weathered ship's marine compass.
A barrister bookcase from another century.
A piece of depression glass that somehow survived generations of moves, meals, and mishaps.
A lighthouse that continues to stand long after the sailors it once guided have been forgotten.
A poem written by someone whose name is now little more than a footnote in a dusty book.
A shipwreck resting beneath the sea.
An abandoned building waiting for a new purpose.
These things are interesting not because they are old, but because they endured.
Every object carries evidence of a journey.
Every scratch, stain, repair, and imperfection is a record of survival.
When I look at an antique, I often find myself wondering where it has been. Who owned it? What conversations occurred around it? What joys and tragedies unfolded in its presence? What paths did it travel before arriving here?
History books tell us about great events.
Objects tell us about ordinary lives.
I think that is why I have always been drawn to relics, maritime history, old poems, forgotten artists, and unusual collections. They are fragments of stories that refuse to disappear completely.
Even my fascination with shipwrecks is less about disaster than preservation.
Beneath the ocean lie vessels that once carried dreams, fortunes, families, ambitions, and adventures. Time and water claimed them, yet their stories remain. Divers search for them. Historians document them. Writers tell their tales. In some way, they continue to live.
The same can be said for old lighthouses, abandoned towns, ancient manuscripts, and weathered cemeteries.
They remind us that we are temporary, but our stories are not.
Perhaps that is why I have never been particularly interested in gore or shock. The macabre has always appealed to me, but not in a violent sense. I do not find beauty in destruction for its own sake.
I find beauty in endurance.
There is a difference.
A skull is not merely a symbol of death. It is also a reminder that a life was once lived.
An old book is not merely paper and ink. It is a conversation reaching across decades or centuries.
A forgotten photograph is not simply an image. It is proof that someone stood in that moment and mattered.
I have often joked about my collections.
Armor.
Antique glass.
Mortar and pestles.
Maritime relics.
Bones.
Frogs.
Strange curiosities gathered from flea markets, antique stores, estate sales, and forgotten corners of the world.
To some people, these objects may appear random.
To me, they are connected by a single idea.
They survived.
One personal rule I have followed for years is that I do not keep broken objects unless they are intended for transformation. If a plate is shattered beyond use, I save it only if it will become part of a mosaic. If a fragment can be reborn as something new, it still has a story to tell.
That realization now seems symbolic.
Perhaps we are all mosaics.
Pieces of experience.
Fragments of memory.
Bits of joy, grief, success, failure, love, loss, and discovery assembled into something entirely our own.
Time breaks some things.
Time preserves others.
And sometimes time transforms them into something unexpected.
Looking back, I believe this fascination explains why certain subjects continue to appear throughout my life and throughout these pages.
The sea.
Shipwrecks.
Lighthouses.
Poetry.
Forgotten places.
Old books.
Antique objects.
Stories of people long gone.
None of these are really about the past.
They are about connection.
They remind us that we are part of a much longer story than our own.
We inherit the work, dreams, failures, and achievements of those who came before us. In turn, we leave something behind for those who follow.
Perhaps that is why I write.
Perhaps that is why I collect.
Perhaps that is why I continue to seek out forgotten stories and overlooked places.
Because in preserving them, I preserve a small piece of the human journey.
And in doing so, I am reminded that the passage of time is not merely the movement from one year to the next.
It is the ongoing conversation between past, present, and future.
A conversation carried by shipwrecks and poems, by antiques and memories, by objects and stories.
A conversation that never truly ends.