Where Have You Been
Oct. 30th, 2007 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueI lost my hat today, the tweed newsboy/Irish cap I wear throughout the cold parts of the year. I nearly lost it yesterday, when a strong and sudden wind nearly blew it off my head, but I reached up to catch it - in process, dislodging a piece of paper from my pocket, a piece of paper worn from handling, a piece of paper on which Ciro had written a shopping list a year ago, the only thing I had of his. It blew in to traffic and stuck damply to a tyre. It was out of sight almost immediately. I don't know how I lost the hat, only that it was this afternoon, just like I don't know where my honey beeswax lip balm disappeared last month, although I do know when. I almost never lose things. I'm careful.
It's weird to say, and to think, but those three lost things were my most important posessions. They weren't the most vital (my shoes, which are getting holes in them, my coat, which is losing buttons, my backpack, whose strap is about to break, my water bottle, and my computer) or the most expensive. They aren't even terribly hard to replace; I have backup hats and lip balm and an old shopping list is an old shopping list. (The shopping list loss is nevertheless the worst blow.) In the long term, they matter less to me than things like my green scarf from Japan, my teacup from China, or my great aunt's calfskin gloves. But the three lost things were somehow talismans, which I knew at the time, even though I was using them without fanfare, for ordinary purposes.
It's unusual for me to develop an attachment to an object rather than an idea or a use. I still don't really understand what I felt and feel about the lost objects, which weren't emblems or markers of a particular time, or even contributors to my identity. They weren't definitive. They didn't make me feel more confident or calm or protected. They were just important in a way nothing else is important, and it feels important that they've suddenly gone. It feels like being barefoot on a city street; like wearing a linen nightgown in a grocery store; like walking through a pitched battle without touching anyone.
It's weird to say, and to think, but those three lost things were my most important posessions. They weren't the most vital (my shoes, which are getting holes in them, my coat, which is losing buttons, my backpack, whose strap is about to break, my water bottle, and my computer) or the most expensive. They aren't even terribly hard to replace; I have backup hats and lip balm and an old shopping list is an old shopping list. (The shopping list loss is nevertheless the worst blow.) In the long term, they matter less to me than things like my green scarf from Japan, my teacup from China, or my great aunt's calfskin gloves. But the three lost things were somehow talismans, which I knew at the time, even though I was using them without fanfare, for ordinary purposes.
It's unusual for me to develop an attachment to an object rather than an idea or a use. I still don't really understand what I felt and feel about the lost objects, which weren't emblems or markers of a particular time, or even contributors to my identity. They weren't definitive. They didn't make me feel more confident or calm or protected. They were just important in a way nothing else is important, and it feels important that they've suddenly gone. It feels like being barefoot on a city street; like wearing a linen nightgown in a grocery store; like walking through a pitched battle without touching anyone.
