toy gator on the dashboard, southbound I-255, Illinois

Part of the lost and found series, this photograph was taken in the last few minutes of our drive from Florida to Missouri last year. This little toy gator, found on the ground at a Florida rest stop the day I moved down for my first job at the Stuart News in 2004, has accompanied me on my many journeys in the car through the subsequent years.

As the gator opened a new chapter in my life moving away to Florida, it also signaled the closing of that chapter and the opening of a new one when we moved back to St. Louis in 2007. It gives me pause to the volumes we write in the pages of our lives.