One of my favorite Instagram accounts belongs to Lara Maiklem (@london.mudlark) who combs the shores of the Thames for objects that wash up or emerge from the muck of centuries of English history. Her trawls have included Elizabethan silver coins, old pottery shards, Victorian buttons, clay pipes, fossils, a child’s toy, medieval shoe buckles and much more. Her book, Mudlarking, details her process and the stories that her finds tell. It takes a keen eye and attention to detail to spot these time-worn bits and pieces in the detritus of the mud and rocks of the riverbanks, to realize that all the machinery of everyday life can also be treasure. You can see on her Instagram how difficult they are to find.

I love following her searches, and it makes me think about the things I ignore or take so much for granted that they fade into the background of my life. 

The yellow pottery bowl with red poppies on the rim that I stopped “seeing” because it was shoved to the back of a chest in a spare room. The statue of Kuan Yin that needed to be given more prominence in order to remind me daily to have compassion for myself and others. The photos, poems and drawings that cover the wall above my desk—when did I stop being inspired by them? In addition to re-appreciating my material belongings, I’m trying to go mudlarking for hope. When the future seems murky or I wake up darkly depressed, I start looking for psychic treasures to get me through the day. The white hyacinth bean vine that surprised me by surviving and whose blossoms remind me of the sweet peas that grew in my grandmother’s yard. The perfect hardboiled egg that slips out of its shell with no hassle. A poem I come upon “accidentally” that makes me feel known across time and space. It’s my Rx for melancholy right now, and when that doesn’t work, I keep a bar of chocolate stashed in the back of fridge for emergencies. I’m pretty sure that counts as a mudlarking find.

Nikki Hardin is a writer of stories, musings, and memories. Her poetry has been published in Riverteeth Journal. She was the founder and publisher of skirt!, a monthly women’s magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. You can reach her at nikki@thedailynikki.com.