Ramblings. As in: Have Words -Will Ramble. As in: Ramble: to write or talk aimlessly or without sequence of ideas, to proceed with turns and twists; meander As In: observances of an everyday life in passing through the spectrum of extraordinary.
Where Do the Lost Things Go To?
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Lost and found. That's what I am. It's my perpetual state of movement through this world. You know that little pig pen kid on Charlie Brown? The one that moved through the world with a constant cloud of dust and dirt? That's me except mine is a state of losing and on my better days - finding said lost items. If you think I'm exaggerating go ask my mother. As a young child I constantly existed in a state of missing. A sweater, a pen, a notebook, a lunchbox, a new coat.
Present day my husband constantly says, YOU LOST WHAT?! YOU LOST THAT?! (And never mind that because of my dysfunction he immediately blames me if anything of HIS is missing! As if my walking pasts it in the room caused some ripple in the placement of all items once located in friendly places.) And I calmly reply , "It's not really lost, it's just on the move. It's going to turn up. I have a statute of limitations on what real lost is but there's no hard and fast rule.
Car Keys, glasses, cell phones, journals, bills, books, are always in this everlasting shift of some kind of quantum physics experiment of time travel. I have this vision of all my things warping in and out of real time and real existence to some mystical forest -my future perhaps? -where I will find them waiting in odd spots, tucked under cushions or in obvious spaces.
Case in point: My most recent investment for radio show travels and interviews - a beautiful little high tech piece of recording equipment that picks up high caliber sound and allows me to record in all types of settings recommended by fellow radio host person the Belle of All Things Southern - But I came back from the Pulpwood Queens great Girlfriend Getaway Weekend and it was MISSING. Now, I knew I had it with me when I left Texas. Had seen it right there next to me in the Jeep. Unpacked right away like a good girl. Then spent the next week tearing the house apart - apart I tell you - searching for this little jewel. I found every type of attachment that came with it known to man and then some. Attachments to other attachments that belonged to things I don't even own anymore or that have finally gone into the permanently for really, really lost category and will never be seen again pile. But no nifty high tech recorder. I tore suitcases apart six times that I knew were empty. I searched Under the couch, the beds, the dirty laundry. I unpacked the Christmas decorations just in case it had somehow crawled into the closet on it's own accord and planted itself beneath the nativity scene or the authentic plastic elves. I frisked the dog, my husband and myself. I searched the jeep three times before it hit those poor deer - and then I called the body shop twice and asked the man to search it again. I considered crawling through the attic and searching there. Nevermind that we don't have an attic. That wasn't going to stop me. In other words, I was losing my mind over the fact that this brand new expensive really, necessary work tool was missing and that somehow once again in life I had LOST something. Then, opening my briefcase yesterday to pull out something totally unreleatedm y hand pulls up this little black bag holding said recorder. Exactly how many times do you think that I had searched MY BRIEFCASE of all places. I'll tell you how many - all of them. A thousand times a thousand.
Now - theories upon theories may abound. God in All his infinite mercy put the thing in there so I'd stop praying about that stupid little recorder and get on to more serious things. Or that theory of time travel and my lost things always jumping ahead of me to some point in my future. I don't really know. And there isn't even any point in me telling myself it will never happen again or that I'll just keep things in one assigned spot. My life doesn't work on assigned spot. I've tried it. It's more like controlled creative chaos. Okay, okay - just more like creative chaos.
But I pine and ponder over the things that never back it back into my present state and time. A huge folder of every little card my boys ever made when they were small. All those handprints, and I love Mommies gone too many years now. (And I suspect someone I'm not NAMING threw them away as he was cleaning out our file cabinets!) My Great-grandaddy's old work stetson that my Daddy gave to me with the promise that I would never, ever lose it. Photographs, old quilts, first locks of hair, gold rings, heirlooms and jewels.
I'm thinking if Peter's waiting at those Pearly Gates where most people will ask life's toughest questions that I'll step right up and ask directions to the Sacred Lost and Found. But what I find there might suprise me in the end. Perhaps on this first day of Lent, if I could give up something, it would be my mourning over the things that have slipped through my fingers in this natural world. Maybe I could replace that time with prayers over what I think that box up there might actually hold. A box of lost dreams and hopes; places where prayers have seemingly gone unanswered, where faith has been lost one tragic step at a time. Maybe I could invest a little time in wishing, praying even, for the lost things of others to be found more than my own. The things that matter most in life. Good karma for my car keys to turn up? Oh, who knows but no doubt a good way for me to focus my human heart more on my fellow man and a little less on me. And in my book that's one time I won't be losing a thing.
Keep reading and keep believing,
River
posted by River Jordan at 9:40 AM
 
1 Comments:
Soul sista you are. I should be running All Things Lost. :) Wonder what all we'll be able to lose in two weeks, huh? All I'm saying is, if we get back with both of us, it'll be a tremendous success!
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