The art of lost and found

What drew me to the bridge this morning was the fact I had lost track of my sketchbook. I had a hunch it was more than lost under the pile of mail and collection of artifacts that seem to cluster daily on the kitchen table with the tenacity of burdocks clinging to a sheepdog. I’m thinking out-of-the-house lost. The only place I would imagine it to be is back on the Millennium Trail; maybe the place where the large beech grove is; where I had stopped awhile during a hike to the outback yesterday. Not sure why I thought of there, but maybe it held hope, rehearsing in my mind all the while the little treasure of notes and drawings and telephone numbers that would have meaning only to me should someone find it. Would they let me know if they did find it, I wonder? Feel free to use up the blank pages as a reward?

You know how it is when we misplace something that often turns up between the car seats or in with the dog biscuits or under the sofa or the drawer with the pots and pans? How about right in front of you? Lost without it, sure as hell gone this time; for good; all of it in the big picture when our treasures vanish from sight. Wherever it is, it’s bloody well somewhere—another response from a tormented rationale. Usually I followup with the ‘damn, I think I’m losing it’ part of the mind rehearsal. I have a lot of practice at this sorta thing. But I have to tell you, that doesn’t make it any easier. Misplacing, Lucy, my therapist, assures me, has little to do with memory loss. By this I take it to be something bigger. More than distracted; out-of-sight, out of my mind is possibly what she’s getting at.

There is the frustration stage, then the pray to Saint Anthony patron of lost and found, approach. By the way, Tony is non-denominational; a sorta universal freelance finder of things. And so early this morning, I go back to the area of my previous day outing. I park my truck. Do a slow paced, gravel-noisy-underfoot walk. Dew heavy on the grasses and wildflowers that frame the former rail bed. Focused, I picture from memory the feel of the surrounding vegetation. Not bad being able to recall minute details of the terrain, when mostly it’s a challenge to recall what day of the week it is. Maybe I’m being unnecessarily hard on myself, self-blame. Another conversation I’ll save for Lucy. It’s then when I spot it. Voila! There, bent and lonely in the grass. My leatherbound sketchbook. I kiss it. Tony I love you! You did it! The great feeling of reunion, of redemption from the sins of thoughtless meanderings of the mind comes over me. “Alleluia,” I cry, and a thrush flies in a panic from under the berry bushes and a million starlings rush to the heavens.

Well I’m here now. May as well take in the old Gardenville rail bridge. A favourite of mine. Crosses a spectacular passage of wetlands that this morning is steeped in the rising light mirroring off of a dusky mix of cattails and mud bed. Low water season; Nobody around; commuter traffic far in the distance, an aircraft high overhead, but the sound of the waters of Weller’s Bay, of the Canada geese stirred from their nighttime refuge are quieting. And oh, I forgot to mention the quarter moon up there and the wail of a diesel train marching off along the main line miles to the north of here. All of it quieting.

And so I grab a seat, here on the bridge, my back against the rail, lazing like a Cheshire cat in the morning sun, hoping no one comes by anytime soon to disturb my reverie. Besides, I gotta thank Tony and the lost and found department of the greater unknown for taking the time to reunite me with my sketchbook, thus launching me on a great day.

I grab a pencil and study lily pads and little skitters that skate across the surface of a pond, skitters so small that only a bullfrog pays attention with a glazed-over blink of an eye. So small that the shining water seems to ripple on its own like a shiver down my back when I think of tantalizing moments like homemade French lemon pie.

And so I’m quieted, the hush of my surrounds, everything in its place, walking-stick near at hand. Now, if I can only find my sunglasses. Gone again into the bottomless vortex of lost paraphernalia. I won’t be squinting like I am in the warm light of September nor bothering Tony and his crowd, and at last, the world will be my oyster.