One Art

I get touchy when people tease me about losing stuff. Because they're right, I lose stuff a lot, but a) I don't to it intentionally, obvs, and b) 95 percent of the time it works out; I find both the stuff, and that it wasn't really worth stressing about. Also, I've found I have very little control over when things get lost or not--I'm just as likely to misplace my phone during busy scattered weeks as planner-toting, well-rested ones. I've prayed the "item a is lost, help me find it" prayer so often, in fact, that Heavenly Father and I are on a kind of short-hand, I can differentiate almost instantly if I'm going to find the thing (my planner--it's a vaguely panicked calm) or not (my digital camera and all my mission pictures--deep, failure-laced nausea).

My family panics about me, like, going to Europe by myself, that maybe I'll call from a payphone in a mystery city with nothing but my chapstick and not a clue even where I am. They get worried looks in their eyes when I discuss moving to big cities (remember that time when I left my ipod on the lawn after running? All afternoon?), they swallow their anxiety and let me borrow cash when I ask them offhandedly if they've seen my wallet lying around. I understand all of this: I just picked up my planner (with credit cards and ID) at the BYU Lost and Found, walked away only to realize that I'd forgotten my source list at the lost and found (it was there when I went back). They're good sports, and I try to read their stress as caring, which I think it is.

I've learned to compensate. My class work is all filed in manila folders, so I know at all times where, at least, I've lost papers. I have a couple of piles of things, I don't go that many places, I know where to start looking if I've misplaced something, and when I need to start getting frantic.

So: to the Lost and Found, to those of you willing to put up with/pay for me when my debit card has disappeared, to the good custodians of BYU who keep good track of my belongings, to Elizabeth Bishop who's picking up what I'm putting down: thanks. Couldn't do it without you.


One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.