Open Writing

Someone said, "The mind is a terrible thing to lose," but I forget who it was. I have always had a memory like a steel trap but in recent years I have mislaid the key.

I mislaid the cell phone recently. I know I had it when I went to the Dog Park but later that day it could not be found. Maybe if I called its number using the house ‘phone I could locate it, that is, if it was lost in or around our home. I rang the number but could hear neither vibration or ring tone. It went to voice mail after very few rings, so I left a message for whoever had found it asking them to call me on my residential number.

It wasn’t an expensive telephone, but it did have almost 2,500 minutes on it and I felt a little peeved that someone might help themselves to my treasured emergency minutes. A short time later I left another voice mail in which I introduced myself whilst trying not to sound desperate but did not go as far as offering a reward.

That is my natural stinginess I suppose, although I have to admit that a reward, undeniably trifling, did plod across my mind, but its footsteps left far less earnest impressions in its wake than those inflicted by the stunning the loss of my miser’s store amounting to forty-two hours of international conversation.

I was sat side by side with Gay in our comfortable chairs this afternoon almost watching television when I thought I heard a familiar tone. It was brief. Too brief to be sure that I had really heard it and too brief to actually recognise it. The TV was set to mute in case someone was trying to contact us from the other side but the noise did not come again.

Half an hour later when Gay had gone to catch up on her much needed rest and I was struggling to fill in a crossword I thought I heard it again. Once again the television sound was muted and I carefully probed the inner recesses of my electric recliner to see whether my previous foray into its interiors had left my prize still captive in its labyrinthine viscera. I had little real hope for having spent a good hour ringing its number and wandering throughout the house, garage, and extensive gardens without so much as a tweet for assistance. I had about given it up as lost and had taken to viewing Googled advertisements for its replacement.

My probing fingers recovered a cardboard replica of the Grand Seal of the State of Minnesota, a South Caroline quarter dollar, a common or garden quarter dollar, a piece of glass bead from a Christmas decoration, and a variety of crumbs from an assortment of baked goods.

Then, with the television sound still hushed, I imagined I heard the fleeting tune again. It was faint but not entirely otherworldly, so I dug into Gay’s sumptuously upholstered rocking chair with hope renewed, but was rewarded with nothing more fascinating that a misplaced tablet of Lipitor, although it could have been any one of a variety of analgæsics because her severely shaking fingers freely dispense a variety of drugs in several directions when she takes her daily and night-time medications. The dogs usually find them and perhaps that explains why they always seem to be in robust health.

Disappointed at my failure, but not disheartened, I turned back to my own chair thrusting my hands as far down as I could between the seat cushion and the well-padded back. I did not hear anything fall onto the carpet but when I explored the carpet behind the chair, there was the fugitive device looking as if it has never been away.

Was it smiling? Don’t ask - I have enough trouble maintaining my touch with reality as it is without deliberately going into the world of make believe any more than I have to. I did check the pockets of the trousers I was wearing when it made good its escape, sliding noiselessly from what turned out to be an unusually shallow pocket.

Consequently the trousers are condemned as fit to be worn when taming our mysterious garden, but not to be worn beyond the boundaries of our Desert Estate, especially when I am travelling more than half a mile away from the mother-ship and need our emergency communications device with me.

I did something else nonsensical a couple of days ago in which I misread something or other, I imagine it was connected to the garden and its appointments, but whatever it was it has slipped from memory where it will torment me until I forget it, and, judging by how quickly I do forget, it will not be long before it is not even a memory.

So far I have not forgotten the names of my wife, my dogs, nor the rest of my family. I know my way to the supermarket. I know the names of most of our doctors and specialists and how to get to their offices. Other than that I can find my way to Church, to the chemist, the hardware store, although once there I forget why I am visiting them.

I can find my way to the Post Office, and to the petrol station that sells the cheapest petrol. When I grumble at paying $2.59 a gallon for it I remember that it is roughly the equivalent of £1.50p in real money, and I feel to sing for happy.

I remember the face and name of a two-year darling that calls me ‘Poppa!’ and melt to hear her voice on the telephone say, "I coming, Poppa!" before she visits. I remember to have ice cream on hand to feed to her. She can feed herself quite well, but it is become a ritual that we both enjoy, and this kind of ritual becomes part of the fabric of our lives, and is all the more important when seen against the wreckage of what is crumbling away as time takes its toll on body and mind.

So, of all that I have forgotten, and yet might forget, I have not forgotten those that love me, nor do I forget those that once loved that have dimmed the flickering lamps of their affection. I might lose a telephone, but I cannot lay aside those joyful memories when love seemed, as it should, to be borne in an eternal flame.

I mourn such losses, but my heart is not so fickle nor easily persuaded that I can ever turn therefrom. Sometimes that which is lost is found. Prodigals return. Love and hope are vindicated. Good triumphs over all its foes. Humanity is re-established. Sorrow is turned to joy, and tears are wiped from every eye.

I cannot always remember the names of my old friends in the Dog Park, but I remember how I am blessed by their kindness, and I remember the names and temperaments of their dogs.

I have never got lost going home, but if I did all I would have to do is to call home and I would be guided there by my dear Gay who is our Mission Control Officer when she is well and I am yonderly.

Of course, to call her I have to know where our cell phone is, and that – unless I am mistaken - is where I came in.

Copyright (C) 2010 Ronnie Bray

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