is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Lost and Found.
Can you imagine a world where, on the worst travel weekend of the year, someone would plan to take a train to Philly, drive to DC, fly to Maine, drive to northern Maine, stay a couple of days, and then do the thing in reverse?
I wasn't exactly involved in the planning stages. And there are reasons for why things had to work this way. But still.
Until this weekend I could not imagine such a world either. It has not been exactly relaxing. But it was not as bad as I thought I would be, travel-wise. I think the economy has a lot of people staying home this year.
Also, on the day of the major travel, Gus lost his wallet, found it, locked his key in the car, I was super grumpy about all the traveling, and sad about some bad news I've been dealing with lately, and then I lost my favorite-ever piece of jewelry (the ring from Jess James in London, the awesome mannish bulky silver with diamond ring). It was not such a good day at its outset.
But the road treated us well, and we like traveling together, so things got better.
And then, two days later, after some intense mourning over the loss of the ring, I slipped my foot into a sneaker to go to the hotel gym, and FOUND MY RING.
Sure, it's strange how attached we can become to material goods. Some might call it superficial. But when you've found something perfect and then worn it every day for more than a decade, the thing is transformed into something more than a consumer good, you know? The mourning was attached to a sense that something was missing from my larger personality without the ring.
Yes, I would have recovered. And yes, it's not as terrible as the loss of love, or of a person you love, or many other things a person could lose.
I once lost a ring I had custom-made for me by the artist Jeanine Payer. I was very sad about it. And then I found it FOUR YEARS LATER in a box I was about to throw out, in the back room of my San Francisco apartment. Sometimes when it's cold fingers shrink and then rings slip off and you don't notice until it's too late. But then sometimes you're lucky and they come back to you.
I also wear a ring that is a hose clamp from a hardware store. It's the cheapest piece of jewelry I own ($0.35), but I also get the most compliments on it. Every few years I lose one. And then I buy a new one. Some of them have been better than others. I also still have the original rings, one silver, one rusty, that I got in Spain one summer, traveling with an international man of mystery. I like how they always say something quasi-philosophical, too, like "UNIVERSAL" or "TRUE," or, my current one "IDEAL STAINLESS MEXICO."
There are plenty of other things I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend, but that's a tiny one for you. My ring came back. And now I've got more family duty to attend to, except that this year it's Gus's family.
11:00 a.m. - November 29, 2008
michael - 2008-12-02 22:56:29
Do you fret over the future fate of your lost things? It keeps me up at night, imaging something I treasured rusting in the bottom of a mall dumpster or crushed on the road..
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js - 2008-12-03 03:32:24
I did have a number of sad moments, imagining my ring in the middle of Race Street in Philly, getting run over by cars and flung all over the asphalt. And when I lost the Payer ring, complete with its encapsulated photo and self-chosen inscription, I had a really hard time whenever I thought of someone else wearing it and not understanding.
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