WRITING PRACTICE: LOST – 10min

Things that are lost, and really I feel like taking a gulp of my coffee. I feel like lying on my tummy at Dr. L’s place and having him adjust whatever it is I lost and has been relocated just behind my shoulder blade. Maybe he’ll find a little trinket, one of Em’s sparkly necklace pendants that she picks up.

Things that are lost, and I picture myself at age 9, or 7, standing on the inside of a women’s clothing rack. I am in the hollow in the center, and all around me are the slacks and skirts and blouses on hangers. I have torn off the bottom half of each price tag, the portion normally taken by the saleswoman when she checks you out. I’ve collected a stack of them, quietly and without drawing attention to what I am doing, while Mom shops.

And now, standing in this center of the rack, in the semi-darkness, I feel lost. Lost in an urban center or lost in a crowd, lost in a stack of clothing, lost while all around me I hear voices of mothers like mine, talking to the salesgirls or to one another, but not to other children. I am alone in my size and in the fact that my mother drags me on her shopping trips. Lost to her, I am like a purse or the lipstick, something to remember about before and after but not in between.

Lost, I am a lost thing found, now, sitting here. My coffee still beckons, coffee is never a lost thing. It dawns on me that some objects, persons, places, things have a lost energy to them, others a found energy. Or maybe it’s not found as much as landed. Solid, rooted, and that’s the way I want to go. If I am on a road traveling, I wouldn’t mind being lost if I knew in my heart I were found.

Lost, lost in space, lost in a world. Keys, wallets, credit cards, what are the things in my life that are lost? I’ve lost jewelry, the blue-and-white round earrings I borrowed of Dee’s. I’ve lost clothing, I couldn’t find my green sweater and later it turned up in Em’s chest of drawers.


-NOTE: I did this writing practice with one of my writing groups.
-From Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – WHAT HAVE YOU LOST.