Where has that coin in your pocket been?

It was one O'Clock in the morning when I happened to glance down at my desk and see the penny pot there. It's just a tub really that I think used to contain hunous (pronounced hugh-mouse to wind up my long suffering girlfriend). Anyway, I scoffed the contents at some point over in the last year and decided it would make a suitable retirement home for the spare change from my pockets. I hate having loose change jangling around. I carry it with me when I go out, but at home I don't like sitting around with it in my pockets, it just falls out and ends up down the sofa.

I noticed that the pot contained a mixture of dull coins and shiny coins. Just out of curiosity, I picked up a few of the dull ones and looked for the date. Couldn't make it out of course because my eyesight ain't that brilliant at the best of times and for some reason or other I need more light now than I used to in order to make out small details. If you're still in your twenties or early thirties you probably can't appreciate that kind of thing. Actually, if your one of the lucky ones who've had perfect eyesight all their lives, are now in their sixties with perfect vision - you probably have no idea either. Okay, so your lucky, good for you.

The date on the coin, when I finally had the room lit up like a nuclear power plant so that I could examine the coin more closely, turned out to be 1970. Okay, that's not old really. Some people have coin collections with REALLY old coins, it's a hobby or livelihood for them. But I haven't really considered coins in this way before. There I was, staring down at this piece of metal that was only a couple of years younger than me and I was filled with a kind of awe. That's not really the right word to describe the feeling though because it was just a coin, a piece of metal, something I could exchange for a bit of whatever I fancied from "sweetie shop".

Yes, that's it. The coin was taking me back in time. I can't remember being two years old, but holding that cold metal in my hand, turning it over and sniffing it kind of made me think about the past. I started wondering where that coin had been over the last 37 years. I know where I I've been and I've still got the scars to prove it. But this innocent looking, dull piece of metal seemed to have aged rather well.

So I rummaged through the tub some more and not being a big tub, it wasn't long before I began to lay out the past on my desk like some kind of tarot master time traveler or something. I had my life in front of me and I could turn over each coin and compare it's tarnished face to a memory my long forgotten youth. Okay, 1994 to 1999 is still a bit of a blur and to be honest I don't want to find any 2001/2002 coins, but you get the picture. It's funny but I've taken the money I earned for granted my whole life and now that I don't have two beans to rub together, I'm paying the penny some homage at last. Here's a thought, maybe I should, I dunno, sacrifice something now I've the one true religion!

No, its not time to whine and complain about money. I'm just lost in this whole "time" thing again. I do that from time to time, once even taking the time to kind of jot down everything I could remember about a particular year, down to the months if I could manage it. I call it my life journal. It's a small text file that's probably even shorter than this (whatever this is!). But it's a series of cues and pointers to help me remember what happened that year. The coins kind of took me back to that and got me thinking again.

Just think about that 1970 two pence coin. It must have been one of the early ones. I wonder where it's been all these years and where it was during the significant moments in my life. Where was it and whose pocket was it in when my son was born. Was it far away at the time? This one coin has been places over the years and so have I. If only it could talk and we could share stories about our lives.

Sure, the life of a coin can only hold so much. It can't eat, can't drink and can't enjoy a ride on a roller coaster. But it's paid for so much for so many over the years.

Maybe this coin I hold in my hands was once held by a small boy, perhaps even me, held aloft to the tall man in the van with the "penny" sweet. Actually we called them "chew's" and they definitely weren't a penny when I were a lad. Maybe this coin travelled the world in someones pocket seeing sights I probably never will. Maybe this coin was held by someone I once loved, and just maybe this coin was held by my held by my mum not long after I was born, perhaps it was in her pay packet, the first one she received when she went back to work.

So what's that penny in your pocket worth to you now then?

Where has that coin in your pocket been?

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