230225 lost and found

I am attached to material things. I feel the sentimental value of a tea chest, a ring. I have a bad history of losing rings and things. I now believe, since it finally clicked, after fifty-six years, that it began with losing a brand-new watch when I was eleven. Subconscious punishment? But I seem to lose jewelry with astonishing frequency. By accident or by intention, I have mislaid earrings, several rings, knocked and broken several rings, lost gems from settings. But, also astonishing, I have found or recovered things. 

Fifteen years ago I went camping. I remember that I did not want to take my rings with me, because I'd be swimming, but I wanted them safe, at home. They went missing that summer. I searched the file drawer where they used to live, and I remembered a small purse that I thought to leave them in. I thought they had gone to a second-hand shop in that purse. I hoped that someone who really needed them found and made use of them. 

Spelunking in the basement long-room last week, I found a box that was my postage stamps, collected for a collage project one day. (A nod to BTC here, who, I think, first drew my attention to the beauty and art in stamps.) I removed the file folder, which left the pile of envelopes that held the stamps, and two rings, in the box. I looked at the rings, but I could not believe, even when I picked them up and held them, I could not believe, that they had come back to me, that they were never gone. It took a few hours to connect the dots - that they had been in that file, in the filing cabinet, I know not why, and I had removed the file, because it was so fat, to a box, sent to the craft room, which contents were removed to the long room to make a bedroom for Robin. It feels like a miracle that I didn't just toss the whole box. I decided the stamps were worth a look, since I had brought them upstairs. The file folder was moldy and I slithered it out and discarded it. When I returned to look in the box, there sat the rings, like a mirage.

I do not think I can believe it even now. One of these rings was my father's mother's, the other was my mother's. It was one of those times that you seem to cross over into an alternate universe in some seismic shift. Maybe it is a sign that the universe is unfolding as it should. It comes at a time when I am feeling the chaos. 

Keep safe. Everyone has covid.

Mumma Yaga