The Little Pottery Jar That Found Me

Thrifting has become a part-time passion of mine. Each item carries its own quiet story, and I often find myself wondering about the life of the person who once held it close. There’s a slight pang of melancholy in that — a tender wondering. Are they still alive? Did they release these things joyfully, making space for new chapters? Or did someone else gently box up their treasures, hoping they’d be found by hands that would love them again?

This week, I found a small pottery jar — warm, earthy, clearly shaped with care. On the bottom, the maker had signed her name: Marie. Below it, she’d carved a tiny outline of a raised fist. A symbol of strength. A whisper of conviction. A message she must have wanted someone to notice.

I studied the curves, the glaze, the quiet confidence baked right into the clay. Who was Marie? What moved her to lift that little symbol of power into the world? Did she give this jar away? Did someone else? Did she imagine a stranger — me — standing in a thrift store one morning, feeling unexpectedly connected to her?

These small discoveries anchor me. They remind me that creativity lives far beyond the pages I write or the illustrations I draw. It lives in the hands of strangers, in objects passed along, in stories we try to piece together with imagination and curiosity.

Finding Marie’s jar made me pause and breathe a little deeper. Someone’s art made its way into my life, into my kitchen, into my curiosity — and somehow, that simple connection steadied me.

Maybe that’s the real gift of thrifting: we pick up old things, but they pick us up, too.