Lost Things
When something hugely valuable changes, many smaller things go missing
After the polls closed last week on the most critical Election Day of our lifetime, where American democracy itself was on the ballot, our party’s volunteers and candidates got together to watch the results come in. Our mountain county in North Carolina reflects the nation; our county seat, the “city”, votes Democratic, while the outlying precincts are rural Republican. Vastly.
That evening, a friend told me about her day working outside a small rural community center where our party’s poll greeters in two-hour shifts handed out sample ballots. It was stressful for her, she said, because during the eleven hours of voting two important things were lost - a voter’s hearing aid in the grass by the polling place, and her cell phone by the road where she took down candidates’ signs.
In the end both things were found, but the concern was still in her voice.
This reminds me of another momentous day years ago. For my son’s wedding, his bride gave me a handkerchief to carry. As everyone left the ceremony to go to the reception, I discovered that I had lost it. I felt compelled to go back inside the empty church, and several people had to wait while I looked for it.
Losing is so complicated. For example, you hear people say they’ve lost their mind, but they never say they’ve found it.
You can be at a loss for words - even while saying so, with words.
You can simply lose your place in a book, or you can profoundly lose your place in the world. It happened for hundreds of families during Helene. It happened on November 5 for all Americans. Profound loss changes your world.
The day President Kennedy was shot, I was reading a book in the Women’s Building at Syracuse University. The librarian announced the news, and I went out and walked around the campus. Then I rode home on the Trailways bus for Thanksgiving. Ever since, whenever I’m in an anxious mood, I dream I’m wandering on that campus and can’t find my way to the next class.
Margaret Atwood wrote in her novel, Cat’s Eye,
In my dreams of this city I am always lost.
So our subconscious will manage it.
Or not.
I don’t think the job going forward in America will be to figure out how to replace everything that’s “lost” with "found”. It has to be more creative than that, and the searching spirit has to somehow break out of the dream world.
Dear reader, in planning this post I had written a very long list of “Lost Things” on a piece of paper, but now that I need it I can’t find it. As Joe Biden says,
Not a joke!
Therefore, the End.
I am grieving a loss. That is the clearest way to explain the heaviness of this past week. I appreciate you for sharing your thoughts, Deda. I know there is light in this experience. I just need to pass through these stages of grief in the healthiest way I can. I am grateful for your companionship on this journey.
I am not yet able to be thoughtful about this loss as I am still perplexed (and frankly angry) that the vast media sanitized Trump to the extent that he became acceptable. Americans actually elected a proven cheat and felon to the presidency. I am truly at a loss for how that happened other than to fault the media.