Lost and Found

I remember turning away. What else could I do? And I knew the general direction of home.

While visiting my hometown not too long ago, I found a jacket I’d lost more than a decade earlier. All that time, that green fitted zip-up had been kicking it in the lost and found at the coffee shop where, glimmering and languid with youth, I’d sprawl across chairs amid hazy billows in the then smoking room playing hooky; where, in that same time period, I took my first pregnancy test; where later, even after the jacket retrieval, I’d ask a man I hadn’t seen in 27 years to spit on a stick.

You know how certain places are holders? Like they store pieces of you you didn’t even realize you were shedding? Even if you meant to go scorched earth, leave nothing behind?

I spent so much time leaving. I mean my hometown. I mean I knew my life was in any direction that led out.

Long before that, I lost a childhood friendship, though I’m not sure how.

That friend and her brother and his bestie and the season of our inseparableness are a cup, too. As for the bits of me I left in that vessel—they’re fierce and unthrottled. What I mean is I don’t think “a time of innocence” is exactly right for childhood. I mean, yes, that. And we all know some children are born short on food, poverty written on their bones. Some are expelled from the birth canal into the crescendo of war or the muzzle of trauma. Some are ripped from caregivers’ arms in the name of “security.” And it’s not, of course, the blamelessness that gets lost. It’s the unfettered expression of me-ness, isn’t it? A target to return to. I got lucky.

Here are pieces of that vessel:

• A table, long-stemmed glasses on either end, wine the color of butter, icy water glasses in front of us kids, my fingers a mirror, plucking a steamy artichoke petal and bathing it in golden sauce, my mouth a mirror, taking the petal between my teeth, the surprise of butter and earth, dark and secretive, on my tongue

• A dance, our eyes fireworks, facing each other in the shared spotlight, moving slow like a dream, our arms exploding open with feeling in full “stage” lights, our hearts fireworks

• A turquoise leotard, sheer tights, thick bright leg warmers, and the pièce de résistance, a button-down shirt of her brother’s

• The hot tub in the backyard in moonlight, heat against chilled skin, goose pimple shivers, Fanta sodas all around—pop, pop, pop, pop sizzle

• Zelda

• Four seats in the dark, The Black Cauldron on the screen at the mall movie theater

• My face in the entryway mirror a beet, eyes still wet, a pyramid of shoulder-length rings still wafting chemicals, a forced cut and perm (I wanted it long and wild, not braided), an, “I think it looks good,” my heart beating

• My body pressed against the fence, her finger against her lips, a retreat on the other side, our quiet giggles

• Her bedspread against our faces, we too weaving fantasies

There’s this fraction of a moment: It contains only a small-squared sidewalk up a hill, that salt finish that puts you in mind of historic districts, though this neighborhood, on the way to her house, wouldn’t have been one, small splotches of light like watercolor spills on blue gray.

Here’s what’s lost to memory—who pulled whose hair first, what started the row, how long we held on like that, hand to hair, hand to hair, eyes like globes, and where this blip fits in.

Look, I’m the painter here. So picture the lightly dappled sidewalk. OK. Now watch me add a rectangular cube and then brush out the details until—awww, you see it—two girls face-to-face, a single square made of arms and hands clutching hair, and the space between them. 

Let’s start over.  This time, I’ll start with two solitary thin shapes, the first on the y axis of the dappled sidewalk, the other on the x. Stroke, refine, and the image emerges. The taller girl on the y, navy blue backpack tight on her shoulders, head high, marches up the hill. The shorter one paces toward canvas west, a long shadow trailing her.

It seems likely the blip is from when the tall girl’s left the canvas. The other, still facing the hill, watches the empty sidewalk, watches a strand of hair fall from her palm, and then pivots west.

So maybe you’re thinking I do know how I lost that friendship. But that wasn’t the end. It was, rather, a lesson in impasse. In return.

I thought I was finding myself when I took up smoking. It was Camel filters for me. I collected Camel bucks and turned them in for prizes, like ashtrays and, I think, a camera once. Can I tell you my associations with cigarettes? Sunlight, green grass, cedar decks, sparkling chrome, escape, innocence.

Sometimes, I’d hold the filter between thumb and second finger, squat on my haunches, inhale, and open my mouth to set free a swallowed cloud. At one point, I could tilt head to sky and let loose rings. Sometimes, I’d stretch out and lean against a wall, bare legs long and sultry, cigarette kissing index and third; I’d bring it to my mouth, slow, wrap my lips gently around it, and suck in a stream along the roof of my mouth. 

When a gas station attendant told me I was too pretty to smoke, I went out to the entryway, lit up, and met her eyes through the window as I took a long, slow drag. 

What I mean is I think adolescence is the time of innocence, even, especially, for the ones enraptured in giving authority and the rules and the world a massive fuck you. Hear me out. It’s the conviction, bright as a blade in sunlight, pure as fired gold, that all that raging and railing against the machine will break it.  

I’m too tired now to tally all I lost in the perpetual leaving. Or what I gained for that matter. And I’m not going to tell you about the man I hadn’t seen for 27 years. Not here.

The barista and I were exchanging been-all right-and-yous and oh-this-or-thats while I waited for my mocha, a drink I only buy there. At a lull in the conversation, the kid in line behind me said he’d lost something or other.

“Hold on,” said the barista, a quiet man of few words and long-suffering, kind eyes for as long as I’ve “known” him from behind that counter.

A moment later, he returned with a cardboard box and set it down between us three. 

The two of them combed through the contents. I want to tell you what I imagine they saw: a naked troll doll, half a pack of Marlboro Reds, two worn Garbage Pail Kids trading cards, and a pocket calculator.

I glanced in.

“Holy shit!” I pointed. “My jacket.”

“The gray one?” the barista asked.

I cocked my head and paused before a cascade of understanding turned my confusion to mirth. “You don’t think that’s green?” I grinned.

“Nope.”

I appealed to the kid, who shook his head.

*

I found god in that coffee shop bathroom.

Everything inside me went waaaa-waaaaaaa-waaaaaa, so the din from on the other side of the door seemed like it was on speed. I stared at the clock on the wall. Its second hand kept getting stuck, tick so labored I feared it would  break. 

“Please, please, please,” I murmured, willing it to tock, willing myself not to look in the direction of the ceramic sink.

Not yet.

Tick.

Wait, I demanded.

“Just a minute,” I called. How long had someone been knocking?

Finally, the second hand finished its third journey around its entire circle. I turned slowly.

One line. It must have taken a second to register. One line! I might have squealed my pleasure. One. I probably burped out a sob of relief. I certainly thought of that circle of pills stashed behind books on my shelf above the bed and swore to never forget a day again.

What if we could see all we’re losing all at once? See how loss is what’s making up the vessel of now that we’ll look back on, or not? Let me make a list:

• Our grasp on reality

• Our capacity to act in good faith, to follow that silvery gossamer thread of generosity whose path is the only way to fill us up, or at least the only way I know of

• Whale’s songs

You finish the list.

What if we stopped and faced each other, eyes wet and wide, and let go of each other’s hair?

What if we didn’t take a decade to realize, “Did I leave my green jacket here?” is the wrong question?

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Photo captions: (1) A fall day on a mountain path in northern Utah, USA, courtesy of Colleen Starley. (2) A bridge on a trail through the Hoh Rainforest, Washington, USA. (3) A path through an arboretum in Oregon, USA. (4) A boardwalk through a slough near Dawson Creek, BC, Canada. All by Holly Starley

Thank you for being here. Connecting with you here is like taking the long way home, in all the good ways. It’s like redefining the question. It’s like figuring how to meet each other, when to agree to an impasse, and the joy of returning. Your likes and shares and restacks (I do a little happy dance when you hit that little recycle button!) make me giddy.

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If you’ve found these weekly posts help you feel something, think something, connect—if they feel like moving in the direction of home together—please take a turn adding to the “gas” fund by becoming a paying roller (it’s less than $3/mo for the annual plan). All funds go to repairing my not-yet-entirely-habitable, new-to-me rolling home, Vivian van Gogh, and to keeping this desk rolling and my pen flowing!

Thank you however you subscribe or if you don’t and you’re just here to have a peep. Your reading and listening give my words a home.

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Today’s post came from a prompt by Caravan Writers Collective. Join us in our latest community writing project: Write what springs from “Lost and Found.” Post it. Tag us in it. We’ll include it in a roundup post and share it with all our Caravan members.

For me, this essay is an example of the way a prompt can lead to work you might not have found otherwise. Learn more about these collaborative projects, a gathering / open mic online reading you’re invited to, and all the Caravan has to offer. Don’t lose the opportunity to write together with working writers who take the work, not themselves, seriously!

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FOR THE COMMENTS, What would you add to the list of things we’re losing? Have you ever recovered something that had been lost for a long time? What have you found makes you feel you’re moving in the right direction, even when things feel difficult?

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Take to the wide open road in a pearl-colored van called Vivian van Gogh