Losin' It
So much that you lose somehow turns up again. That’s my one comfort.I’m like the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass who, when Alice sees her in the woods, reports that she has lost her comb, while her hairbrush hangs unnoticed from a section of her unkempt locks.I can identify, is what I’m saying, because ONCE AGAIN I have lost my camera.It wasn’t misplaced. It wasn’t left behind somewhere. It was simply rendered invisible as if by some magic spell, and all I can do is hope it might as magically manifest again.I also lost my phone holster and did not find it until three days later when I was rummaging through the fridge. That's where my keys always are too when they get lost, typically on the third shelf from the top, right next to that jar of salsa.AND I was reading the nice book called The Notebook of Lost Thing, but then I lost it. (This is true!)Sigh. Maybe I should just make a list of the things I haven’t lost yet; that might be easier.Let's see:
- Well I haven’t lost my tendency to stammer when I have trouble getting a word in.
- I haven’t lost my wedding ring, probably because it’s practically soldered onto my hand after all these years.
- And, I haven’t lost the ability to recite that list of the thorniest Latin verbs in all their forms, though I don’t get much call to trot those out anymore.
They say the things that enter your mind early are the things you remember best and I think it's true. Yesterday in the waiting room of the doctor’s office a handsome man walked in, took a chair and looked me full in the face.“You’re Terry Sheehy!” he said.Startled, I just looked at him.“Shane!” he said, pointing to his chest. “Shane McDonough!”Now I have not seen Shane McDonough except once, from the back, for almost 50 years. Not since I was deep in 7th Grade love with his older brother and he was the cutest little six-year-old on the block.“Shane! Of course! But how did you know me?”“How did I know you? You look like yourself!” he said, which to me seemed completely impossible since back then I was basically a jelly doughnut whereas now I have that same pointy-chinned. long-nosed look that Zelda Fitzgerald got near the end of the wild years in Paris when she and old F. Scott were slipping booze into their baby’s bottle, to make sure she got the really GOOD sleep.It’s a lovely thought though, that we might look the same to the people who knew us ‘back then' and maybe it's even true. I'm just now realizing that when I look at Old Dave I still see the 21-year-old I fell for so long ago. So while I may lose all manner of things over the years, I maybe can take comfort in knowing that all the really important stuff is being safely held for me… somewhere...Now if I could just find that camera…
