You know, it’s interesting how the contexts of our relationships are intimately interconnected with the relationships themselves. At the start of a relationship, objects take on talismanic powers — “She wrote me a note! On this crumpled Stickie!” –  and during a relationship they become, in many ways, the terrain of those intertwined lives (that apartment with the crazy radiator; the key on a long string; the first whatever-it-was you bought together).

Then, of course, in the end, objects become painful reminders; simple things take on whole complicated psychic dimensions — a picture frame never  filled, a gift never bestowed. In this way, the power of connection  is the central defining dimension of our lives: it writes our histories on the world around us. An old watch, an unmailed envelope, a Ford Cortina — on their own, they’re simply things. But through the lens of human love they become magical artifacts — not always good magic, but still — and as we move through life they become a jumbled, flea-markety record of who we were in those passed moments.

It’s no wonder they hold such power, that some of us accumulate them compulsively and others of us walk away. Sometimes they even take over the story — as in the one we offer you after the jump — which we recently received in response to Evany Thomas‘s classic Big To Do column on “The Cortina Principle.“  Which is to say: We’re still wondering if Fairly Honest Bill ever got married! Stay tuned. — Team BG

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