Tusker Bottlecap With Andes Mint Wrapper

This is the object that made me resolve to document everything in Martha’s bag. It had been a long, long journey to get to our wedding, spanning multiple road trips and the first two years of the pandemic. It was very late on the night of our wedding, and we were having an emotional connection with our friend Drew, who had d.j.’d for us. I dug around in Martha’s bag to give him more money, and found this bottle cap. It was from the trip to Africa Martha took right after we first met, one of two she’d take that year, which made her seem very worldly and well-traveled to me. The Andes mint wrapper crammed in the back was unmistakably from the bottomless bowl of free Andes mints at the Roadside Attraction bar in our old neighborhood in Portland, which we hadn’t been to for years because of the Pandemic and moving way. Indellible artifacts from two different, distinct parts of our lives, both seemingly a million years gone, plinking to the floor in a moment that very concretely felt like the point on which our lives were pivoting to become something new.