a list of the lost

No, not people, and not animal friends--though I could list so many of each who came into my life and left my life. But objects. Possessions. Things gained and then lost, or stolen, or misplaced.

My grandmother said that lost things all go to the dark side of the moon. If she was correct, the jumble there will still hold:

my latest loss--a vase I bought a few days ago, and left in our car. It was inexpensive, yellow glass, frosted, with a dark blue swirl at the top. I loved the color, and imagined it full of spring flowers, or empty, sitting on a shelf, catching the light. In the paper bag with it were some packets of heirloom sweet pea seeds as well. Alas, we left the car unlocked in a big city parking lot, and one of my partner's bags, full of oddments of writing, though nothing he says he misses, was taken. And the paper bag with the vase and the seeds, and my little son's tape recorder, which he carries everywhere. I was grateful the thief left the bouquet of white Casablanca lilies, wrapped in wet newspaper.

a garnet and pearl ring, which my father gave me when I was six. One purply red garnet flanked by two tiny pearls. The ring was big for my skinny fingers. I wore it anyway...and it is now on the darkside of the moon, I guess.

red shoes. I didn't lose them, except to time, growth, and wear. Bought for school when I was almost 11, they were a dark, true red, leather, with two black ornamental, flat buttons towards the side, on the top. They were, I thought, so absolutely beautiful that I would wake in the night, go to the closet, and sit under the closet light gazing at them, sighing for the wonder of it. Perhaps it was the years of saddleshoes, black and white and laced up, that made those red shoes the wonder they were.

My beautiful, trusted, adored Mont Blanc fountain pen. It was dark green, with a gold nib, and wrote so fluently. I used it throughout my journeys in Europe; I have journals and books of fair draft poems written with it; friends still have letters I wrote with that pen. It was a generous gift from coworkers at an east coast bookstore (one in which I got into a good deal of trouble as a union organizer). One sunny spring day I was traveling to the big town to the north and stopped at a Texaco gas station, where I left the pen on the back of the toilet commode. It had gone when I stopped again that afternoon, and how I mourned its loss. I've had a number of other fountain pens, and settled as well for all sorts of new disposables--but I see my Mont Blanc in my dreams still.

Another ring. Indeed, another garnet and pearl ring, and a fireopal set in silver by a local jeweler, and a puffy blue down coat in the pockets of which those rings were tucked, so that I could clean the motel rooms unhindered (the maid job was the only one to be had then). The garnet ring was from the turn of the century, ornate, the garnet very dark and large as my thumbnail, surrounded by tiny seed pearls, a gift from a dear friend and lover. I came from scrubbing toilets and making beds to see the coat, left on a chair outside, gone.

A cameo from my grandmother, set in gold, pinned to a black sweater. Sweater and cameo vanished one day from my bookstore, never to be seen again.

My journal and poetry notebooks from my last year in college. How foolishly I stored them with the parents of my then boyfriend. When I was back again in the country they had no recollection of the box of books and notebooks.

And what happened to the glass ship? Blown glass, fragile beyond belief, with sails and rigging. A gift from yet another true love. It lived in the windows of many a place I traveled after I left him to his orderly and, I hope, happy life, catching the sunlight. Did I drop it? Leave it? Give it away?

It is probably in the same place as my grandmother's silver hair pin, the one that clasped my long hair for so many years, until I cut my hair short, and put the pin aside, and then...where did it go? The pin was oval, with delicate etching upon it, with a silver bar to hold slippery Finnish-straight hair in place.

And there are scarves, and umbrellas, and books generously lent and never returned, and jackets, sweaters, hats. I seem to go through my life shedding things...but missing them. Ah, my fountain pen...