Lost Things

I lost one of my pens.  It wasn’t one of my fountain pens.  But, it was one of my backups, a Pilot Precise V5.  They’re good, sturdy pens—refillable and they write well.

I had it out on a walk with me, using it to take notes in my small notebook.  At one point in the path, I paused to jot something down.  It ended up being a fairly long note so I stood in that spot for several minutes before continuing on.  About ten minutes later, when another thought occurred to me, I reached in my pocket to pull it out, but it was gone.  I checked and checked my pocket, the ground around me, and a short distance on the path behind me.  It was gone.

I could have gone back to search for it right at that moment.  I’m not sure why I didn’t.  (I couldn’t, after all, write about my thought process at that moment).  Whatever the reasoning, I continued on my trek sans pen.

Weather kept me from taking that particular path for a few days.  So, I knew that the likelihood of finding my pen was almost nil.  Still, I wanted to have a look around for it.

Once the weather cleared, I set out to look for my pen.  Just one time.  This constraint felt significant.  I didn’t want to be forever wondering what befell my pen.  Nor did I want to always have eyes trained down, scouring the ground for a pen that would surely never turn up.

It’s a fairly long trek to the spot where I last had my pen.  I walked and my mind wandered in every direction, as it is wont to do.  When I reached the section of trail where it went missing, I focused my attention on the ground.  I looked.  I hunted.  I searched.  

As I swept my eyes back and forth on the trail I thought about lost things.  I thought about the pair of Buzz Lightyear shorts we lost in the parking lot of the Mangrove National Park in Abu Dhabi.  I thought of the ring that my grandmother gave me in my teenage years that has now been missing for some six or seven years.  I thought about the myriad of tiny little things that I have misplaced over the years.

Then, I thought about The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, one of my favorite books by Kate D. Camilo.   Edward Tulane, a stuffed rabbit, is reinvented every time he finds himself in the possession of some new proprietor.  I began to imagine all the new lives my pen might inhabit, passed haphazardly from owner to owner.  

Taking notes in university halls.  
Scribbling on walls in the hands of a budding preschool artist.  
Jotting notations onto music staffs.  
Signing a love note. 
Doodling on an arm during long lectures.
Listing grocery items to be procured.

When I arrived at the spot on the trail where I’d discovered that my pen was missing, I made myself stop looking, to stop wondering where it had gone.  Instead, I looked up, into the tree branches, just exploding into blossom.