Midnight Mutterings | Losing

There are lots of ways of losing. We can lose an election, respect, direction, our way, speed, motivation, interest, energy, faith, love, and friendships. We can lose our patience and our tempers, among other sad states. Even worse, we can lose our minds.

Less metaphorically, we can lose our stuff. That’s when we lose our keys, our wallet, our stamps, the letter we wrote but forgot to mail (if we have written a snail mail letter within memory), our other shoe, things in the back of the fridge, the can opener, our favorite kitchen knife and the directions to the place we booked to stay for the night.

And we can lose our phones.

Decades ago when I was living in the Bay Area of California, I was spending a couple of weeks in a seminar about something or other that was supposedly designed to enhance my success in a career still at a distance from my then current life. A life that involved small children, a bicycle, and a bookstore where we spent a lot of time, where I read textbooks I couldn’t afford. The kids ran around the store because I couldn’t afford baby sitters either. It was a simple life, a rewarding life, and I was content in most ways.

The first morning of the seminar was gorgeous as only northern California can be in early summer, and most of us in the seminar probably wished we were outside somewhere else. The seminar leader, who turned out to be quite good, probably wished she were outside too.

In any case, she started the course by asking each of us to say a bit about ourselves, what we hoped to gain from the two weeks we were to be together and what we might be doing if we weren’t in that room at that moment. Most of us spoke of hikes we might be on, boats we could be sailing, perfect times with our children or families, possibly at the beach. I have no memory of what I said, but I do recall the words of one woman, a woman who was likely more honest and realistic than the rest of us. What she said was that if she hadn’t been with us in that room, she would probably be at home ‘looking for stuff.’

Of course I recall that woman all these years later when I am looking for something. Looking for stuff is what I spend a lot of time doing. Sure I know all about minimalism, where everything has a place and everything is in its place. Like on a boat. (Well, I have lived on a boat, and I spent a lot of time looking for stuff then too.)

I’m still spending far to much time and effort looking for stuff. My house is reasonably clean. You won’t find any rotten oranges or dead cats among my (too much) stuff. But you won’t find consistent organization either. There is too much paper, particularly. I am regularly shuffling through my paper piles for the one paper I need right now. My digital ‘files’ are even more confounding as I can’t spread them all over the floor and then try to stack them up on a orderly way. That would be organization, and what I’m looking for it that one paper I need right now to accomplish whatever it is I need to do right now. And as soon as I have accomplished that, I need to get something to eat, and I need to go for a walk, because I don’t live on the beach just so I can stay in the house and organize those papers when I already found the one I needed right now. Etc.

Besides that paper, I needed right now for my dark green turtleneck I want to wear today, I have to find some other stuff that isn’t in the place it should be because it doesn’t have such a place.

What I look for a lot is my phone.

Why would someone, or someones invent something so wonderful, so useful, and now so ubiquitous without inventing a way to keep it with us easily. A cell phone doesn’t fit in every pocket, hang from the wrist, isn’t velcroed to my shirt. I can’t hold my phone while I eat, take a shower or change my clothes. No one can tie shoes or do anything that requires two hands or is wet or sticky. It’s hard to hold your phone while you pick up a child or a puppy or get out your credit card.

Your phone is simply there for you (and especially me) to set down somewhere and walk away without picking it up or have the tiniest memory or where I last set it down. Sure, I have a box beside my door where I often put my keys and phone when I walk in my door. But then, later, when I read or send a text or make a call or look something up, it does not automatically jump back into that box. No. It creeps under a chair, slides under a bill that needs paying, jumps into the pocket of a jacket I haven’t worn for weeks. Or ever…Apparently it jumps behind a couch, or escapes the heat inside the fridge. (OK, that was only once, but still…)

Here’s what I want you to invent: I want a two part app. There’s going to be a part that I pin to my clothes, and a part that’s attached to or inside the phone. Then, when I’m, say, in a store, or a friend’s house, or even in my own not particularly spacious house, and move six feet without picking up my phone, it’s going to get lonely and it will call me with a specific sound that indicates that my phone wishes for the comfort of my hand, please. Or maybe even give me the tiniest shock that will get my attention so that my wayward phone and I are reunited before it’s too late.

OK, technology has advanced, and I now have a watch to go with my phone. And I can, when I lose my phone at home, I can say, ‘Siri, find my phone’ into my wrist. That smart Siri, after a disheartening pause will say, ‘Nearby. Then: ‘Pinging your phone now.’’ That’s on a good day. On another sort of day, Siri doesn’t say ‘Nearby,’ which means I have left my phone in the car or somewhere further afield, where it is pinging into the wilderness.

That is, until lately. My watch has been under the weather, can be charged by only one of the three magnetic discs I have that can seem to suit the watch these days. But that’s another story, another mystery to solve, in the tech maze that rules my life there days.

I can only hope that I live long enough with sufficient brain cells firing that evolving tech genius will charge all my devices with secret sources in the atmosphere and I can show the cats (in lieu of grandchildren) those snarled cords that tangle around my ankles today keep my devices fed and content for another few functioning hours.

Losing an election might be more disheartening than losing a phone, but is it really as frustrating? I haven’t have much experience with elections since fourth grade, and I won that one.You can look it up: Ravenscroft School, Raleigh, North Carolina.

But I lost my phone earlier this evening. I was visiting a neighbor and had to borrow a flashlight to get home after dark. I found my phone even if my watch was on strike. And, alas, we’ll probably dance the Lost Phone Dance again soon, perhaps tomorrow…