Oh Where, Oh Where?

My wallet disappeared on Friday, my leather black and red Lodis wallet suggested by a friend on a November shopping spree in 2004, my wallet with the pull out license and credit card insert that fits perfectly into a jean hip pocket, my wallet with its debit card, two credit cards, membership cards, my license, and 18 dollars.  AWOL!

I discovered my wallet's absence on Monday morning at 10:30 when, at Kinko's the salesclerk said, "That will be eleven dollars and forty-three cents." A woman fishing into her purse knows what is there; hers is a confident, familiar act, her hand like eyes. My husband would have to dump my bag upside down to find a rock in it.  I can find a stray menthol lozenge in a split second.

"Oops!"  I said.  "Must have left my wallet on my desk.  I will be right back."  And so it began, the spinning search for the wallet.

Life must go on.  One cannot push a pause button to look for a wallet.  My day took off without the wallet, sans identification and money.  Instead of focusing on the business at hand, my mind slipped into replay mode:  Where had I been?  I sent texts to friends.  Maybe they had seen it.

"Sorry.  Haven't seen it."

The wallet's absence sliced through Monday's schedule, serious discussions at a board meeting, companionable conversations with friends, a dinner party, and an evening concert.  It was bedtime before I could look under sofas, through pockets, and into cabinets.  Defeated, I slept fitfully.

Tuesday's sunrise woke me.  Typically, not an early bird, I jolted out of bed and renewed the ruminant search.  No activity had occurred on our bank accounts, so the wallet was secure, but secure where?  Behind the washer and dryer.  Under a bag in the car.  On the deck.  In the greenhouse.  Beneath a boxwood shrub.  Maybe our pup had carried it off.  Under beds.  Into closets. To his bed.

By noon I had given up.  "I'm gonna have to put a stop on all the cards," I said to my husband who was quietly finishing a turkey sandwich.  I had spent lunchtime reviewing for him my replayed scenes from Friday.  He said nothing.

I dialed the bank's number.

"Stop!  Found it!"  And there it was, in his hand, my precious wallet -- ice cold.  "Found it in the freezer."

Honestly, there is a logical explanation.  A frozen pork loin, a distracted mind, etcetera.

But..

As one friend said, "I have been meaning to talk with you about your habit of wearing your bra on the outside of your blouse...just saying."

......
“Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side!”
― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

First Love

“I make it easier for people to leave by making them hate me a little.”
― Cecelia Ahern, The Book of Tomorrow

I was 19, a time still fresh in my memory but honestly so long ago I should have left it behind in life's wake of marriages, deaths, children, and grandchildren.  And who knows? This story might be colored by my needs today.  I'm incapable of parsing events then and now into evidentiary facts, so convinced I am of the emotional lesson.

I was in love. Ridiculously, blindly in love with a handsome fella, so handsome I found it hard to believe I'd landed him with so little effort, standing in line during freshman orientation, drinking coffee, lightly talking about where we were from.  That day stretched into lunch together, a walk in a nearby park, and one date after another, delicious kisses, and well, let's just say it was difficult to concentrate on writing essays about Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and Faulkner's "Bear." Somehow I managed to memorize how DNA and RNA differed and could categorize periods of art history in spite of my preoccupation for my handsome boyfriend who pulsed within me like electrical current.

The handsome one modeled for Los Angeles magazines between semesters.  His blue eyes weren't just for show; they were invitational as in "Tell me." His neatly cut bronze hair polished his clean cut appearance, his athletic body appearing casually confident.  We met after classes, talked every day, played together, laughed and cried together.  We admired gardens and enjoyed art.  We danced on Saturday nights and attended church on Sundays. I liked how his gentleness contrasted with his athletic energy.

And then after two years of long walks through neighborhood gardens, golf and tennis games, weekend ski adventures, long bike rides through the countryside, beach adventures, and studying together, something changed. A tilt.

The clues were subtle.  He called less.  He was concentrating on his studies. He said less.  The distance morphed to irritations, misunderstandings, and confusion.

He wasn't seeing someone else.  He just wasn't present.  He became my opaque dinner companion and my silent dance partner.

I liked him less but loved him more.  It felt odd.

I waited as if suspended.

Whatever was happening, I could not dislike him, much less hate him.

And then the spring semester ended. He came to kiss me goodby.  I was returning home for my summer in San Francisco, he for his summer in San Bernadino.  The kiss was unlike any in my experience, a kiss, I now know, filled with feelings of failure and grief, but warm with affection and care.  He had decided love wasn't enough.

His Dearest Diane letter arrived two weeks later.  He had dropped out of school.  He had failed to meet his parent's requirements for his remaining at Willamette University.  He believed he wasn't good enough for me and there would be no changing his mind.  He had to carve out a new pathway.  He apologized for the confusions and misunderstandings.  He realized he had tried to make it easier by distancing himself. I had surprised him with my patience and acceptance while he had anticipated my learning to hate him.  He would never forget me and love me for ever. But it was over.

I don't know about him.  But I have never forgotten him, and in a way I have always loved him, as he was then, not the man he became, but the man he was at the time.