The Things we Keep

I was searching for a photograph one January morning when I spied this assembly of cars off the highway near Ola. The winter light was raking in from the southeast, defining them to the tiniest detail.

It’s a scene not unfamiliar in rural Idaho. Someone’s sprawling car collection. A few flat tires sunken in the frozen dirt. Old work trucks, SUVs, a VW Beetle, an ATV, a faded El Camino. Nothing consistent except four wheels.

The things we keep.

Who tends a yard like this? Are these rigs still woven into someone’s daily life, or relics left to rest where they died? Maybe it’s an informal hub where coworkers meet to carpool, or a slow-motion car lot with an accidental inventory. Or Is it simply the quiet accumulation of a restless soul with an insatiable appetite for anything that rolls?

I stood at the gravel edge for a long while and could not decipher its purpose.