I have over the years lost many items of special value, it started at a very early age with a red bag this very cavalier attitude to material things. In my teens it was jewellery, a gold signet ring my mother had inherited from a cousin who died of TB at the age of 18. I took, it wore it to school, removed it for a DT lesson and forgot to put it back on. A charm bracelet met a similar fate soon after, taken off for a yoga class.
Once standing by a deep quarry pool an earring plopped into the water never to be seen again, the amount of single earrings I had by the end of my twenties so many single earrings you wouldn't believe.
My purse too, I have lost at least twice, which on top of having it stolen more times than I can count has caused untold stress and misery. I have on occasion had it returned but not my scarves.
Recently I have noticed that scarves have become an issue, a BIG issue, it does not seem that I leave with a scarf and return without one, more that I take it off whilst walking and it falls out of my bag, Emin even picked one up from the pavement long after I had returned home one night. What appears to be Sod's law is that it is always my most favourite ones that go, the ones I love, the soft cashmere, the one who's colour I will never replicate, the hand woven. Yet I never seem to quite learn from my carelessness. The loss of one scarf in particular still hurts. A gift, long very soft grey cashmere. I last remember folding it with a buff coloured one and placing it into winter storage, I never saw it again.
Last Sunday I managed to up the ante, I lost not one, but two cardies, my two favourite ones from COS, one black, one grey. I had worn them to Cyprus instead of a coat and intended to put them on once I had landed in the UK. It was so hot on the plane and in the airport I slung them over my bag too lazy to fold them and put them inside the way I did on the way there. In less than 5 min's I knew they were gone. I retraced my steps close to tears, but no sign. I phoned lost property yesterday, no sign. My heart is broken, their hanger is empty and I have lost a layer of warmth that cannot be replaced. Shetland wool in March...No chance.
4 comments:
I lost a favorite scarf/shawl on the train to NYC once. I left it on the seat and promptly forgot about it until the end of the day, when I was heading north again and needed it for the cold.
I checked lost&found and called repeatedly, even taking the trip back to search.
Sometimes it seems I like I struggle between the extremes of carelessness and over-care, loving things too deeply and then losing them too easily.
Oh, so annoying! I used to lose things more often until the two-year period when I was commuting to do my M.A. and was always on a bus or a rapid transit train or a ferry or whatever . . . I consciously put some habits in place which aren't quite obsessive-compulsive but almost. I do remember that sense of feeling quite bereft.
Do you know Elizabeth Bishop's poem "The Art of Losing"? Worth reading . . . probably won't console you for the loss of your woolies though.
Oh noes, I am so sorry that you lost your beloved cardies. I am not able to get over lost objects. Their loss stays with me for decades. I still wonder if maybe some day I will find them. I wonder where they are even long beyond my actually wishing to use them. The worst loss ever was the diamond tennis bracelet that I got for my 40th birthday. That loss cured me of ever wanting real jewelry.
I hope your woolies come back to you.
Mardel, I love what you say about loving things too much; I too have that extreme carelessness which has not cost me dear.
Mater I am generally OK when travelling by train but put me in a busy place and I just seem to not realise what is going on. I will read the poem though, thank you.
Belette, I don't know what says about my attitude to material objects but the sense of loss remains for a long time for me too.
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