Lost and Found

"Something’s lost that can’t be found. Please, St. Anthony, look around." -Old Catholic Saying

I swear, St. Anthony should be on retainer at my house. I cannot, no matter how hard I try,  keep track of anything. At the end of my life, if I could just get back all the time I’ve spent looking for my keys, my purse, and the mail, I’d live another ten years. Ben Franklin said “Lost time is never found again” so I’m never getting these hours back but the same applies to every pen or pencil that has ever been in my hand. I have cups of pens and pencils all over the house, and I still usually wind up grabbing a lipstick to jot down a number on the bathroom mirror. Then I can’t find the lipstick when I want it because I put it back in one of the pencil cups.

 I don’t think I actually lose things. The stuff is always there, it’s never really gone. I am the one who is lost. Amid all the noisy demands of an average day, I am lucky I don’t need a GPS to get to the backyard. I am never doing just one thing. Multi tasking is a survival skill today. Its automatic, but no matter how much you have to do, you only have so much room in your head. At some point you are full up. For me, my energy is all put towards getting the important things done, especially when the definition of important changes almost hourly. There isn’t much left over for keeping track of my keys, my wallet, my shoes or anything not alive and needing my immediate attention.

I got a key chain once with a beeper on it and a base.  Push the button on the base, and the key chain beeps so you can find it. I lost the base, even though it came with a sticky back thing to attach it to a wall AND a magnet so it could go on the fridge. I came across it about a year later in the back of the silverware drawer.  I have key hooks right near my door. They say “KEYS” right on them, how hard is that? Apparently, it’s too difficult to master because right now hanging on my key hooks are two plastic Hannah Montana bracelets, my son’s graduation tassel from two years ago and a clip with a mini Beanie Baby on it. But no keys. When I should be searching for the calm in a storm of to do lists and errands I am instead flipping couch cushions and rummaging in coat pockets for my car keys.

However, I am not doomed entirely. It seems that this "losing things" gene skips a generation. My daughter, a.k.a. “Super Finder Girl” is some kind of human locator beacon. She knows where EVERYTHING is. Stuff that isn’t even hers, she will just know. The other day I was looking for my eyeliner. Given that I only wear it about three times a year, it could have been anywhere. I wasn’t even sure I had eyeliner. “Mommy!  It’s right here” and she pulls open the linen closet door (where I keep things like wrapping paper, light bulbs and ant traps) and the eyeliner is sitting right next to a box of emergency candles.

I can’t imagine how she knows these things. I am not someone with a normal thought process on where things go. For example I keep my flashlight in my refrigerator. I know, sounds crazy but it’s not. Batteries last longer if they are kept cool and when you open the fridge door, the light goes on, so you can see it. But of course, when the lights go out, I don’t remember that. I go into action mode, trying not to trip on anything, and thinking about what is about to go bad in the freezer and if my laptop will get fried when the power surges back on.

Devin on the other hand is completely unconcerned about this.  She is thinking “excellent, we can play flashlight tag!” My mother had the poem “Desiderata” on a plaque in our kitchen when I was growing up. Devin lives it, she really does “ go placidly amidst the noise and the haste”. Not for nothing, I usually am the noise and the haste.

But my daughter, she is something else entirely. The world unfolds and she just takes it all in. Not always calmly, not by a long shot, but she really is way more zen than I will ever be. Maybe as she gets older it will change, she will have places to go and things to do. Her own car keys and cell phone will replace the Barbie phone and the Hello Kitty purse she carries now.

I hope even then she knows that keeping track of her things isn’t the goal. No matter what, you can always get a spare key made or a new lipstick. What is way more elusive is the spirit of adventure that comes when the lights go out, or the joy of splashing in puddles when you couldn’t find the rain boots. You lose that and you will need more than St. Anthony to help you find it.