Lost & Found

Kneeling awkwardly in the front seat of my car, peering down into the alarmingly filthy space between the seats, it occurs to me that this is the second time in 24 hours that I have found myself in this position. Last night when I pulled up in front of Colleen's house for Girls Night and reached over to grab my still-warm rhubarb pie from the passenger's side, I somehow managed to flip the whole pie face down onto the floor of the car. By some miracle, the teacloth I had draped over the pie remained in place, so no part of it came into contact with the layer of gum wrappers, old newspapers, crumpled tissues, spilled coffee, and spring mud that covers the floor of my car. And by careful maneuvering I was able to flip the pie back upright with only a hint of rhubarb seepage on the teacloth.

Today things are looking a little hairier. My necklace chain snapped just as I was pulling into the coffeeshop parking lot, and my silver key pendant slipped down between the driver's seat and the gear shift. I can see it twinkling there on top of a furry-looking penny, but my efforts to snag it with the unbent paperclip I begged from the very helpful barista have only succeeded in tilting the penny, so that the key is now poised to slide off into the dark, cluttered chasm.

I might pause here to explain that I have a tendency to attach enormous symbolic meaning to small objects of this sort. Two years ago, for instance, I was devastated by the loss of the apple pendant I'd worn every day for years: I felt stripped of the mysterious power I'd drawn from its simple open shape and fertile metaphors.* Josie picked out the key necklace for me after I lost the apple, and it has helped me unlock so many doors since -- in my life and in myself -- it would be mighty hard not to interpret its loss as a crushing omen of some kind.

I sit back on my heels, considering whether it might be better to drive home, where I would have access to a wide array of tools: crochet hooks, fishhooks, chopsticks, pliers, and maybe even that long skinny thing you use to finish off the edges of those woven potholders? But I fear the journey home would jostle the key even further out of reach, or out of sight completely.

So I try again. This time I manage to slide the tip of the paperclip under the head of the tiny key, but I can't get it hooked through the hole. Instead my nudges send the key off the edge of the penny -- and with a muffled clatter, it settles somewhere down below.

Oh, hell. But as Atticus Finch might have said, not time to worry yet. Perhaps the key has fallen all the way to the floor and can now be retrieved under the seat. I clamber into the back seat and start pulling an endless collection of soccer cleats, water bottles, old school permission slips, single gloves, and overdue library books out from under the driver's seat, carefully shaking each item so as to be sure the key isn't lodged in some fold or cranny. No luck. I shove the seat all the way forward, opening up a fairly clear view of the area in question. No key. Probing again from above, I realize that the key -- and now the penny too -- has fallen into a channel of the seat's sliding mechanism, behind a gray plastic cover.

You may have gathered by now that automobile aesthetics are not a high priority of mine. I have no hesitation about ripping the plastic cover off and cramming it into the bulging garbage bag I have filled. Bingo! Like an old fashioned slot machine jackpot, a stream of coins comes flooding out onto the floor of the car -- and there, among the sticky-yet-somehow-also-slimy quarters, lies my tiny silver key.

I know it's silly to let these things matter so much: the silver key has simply been a helpful reminder not to let myself be confined, to find a way through the obstacles, to open myself up to whatever comes next. And surely whatever fruitful energy I got from the apple actually originated in me.

I also know that clinging to these little tokens can hold you back -- and when you lose one sometimes it's a sign that you needed to let it go anyway. But sometimes it's best to hang on to a symbol -- and the task or emotion or whatever it symbolized -- until you know you're really ready to move on. When William Penn became a Quaker, he wasn't sure he could put away his sword -- a symbol of violence and of social hierarchy, both antithetical to Quaker beliefs. George Fox is said to have told him, "Wear thy sword as long as thee can." When you're ready to give it up, you'll know.

Well, whether the silver key was a pathetic crutch or a useful touchstone, I definitely wasn't ready to lose it today. It felt right to go after it, somehow -- even if it meant pawing through month-old bagel crumbs. And having it come back to me in a shower of money seemed like a lucky sign: maybe I'm not done opening doors just yet.


*I could go on and on about my slow recovery from that loss, and describe the circuitous route that led me from our friend Julie Glass's book tour to a librarian/novelist in borrowed hipster shoes to the artist who made the apple pendant (she lives in Columbia City, of all places), and the pear necklace she made for me last Christmas, "because another apple would be like cloning your pet" --- but I'll leave it at that.