The Art of Losing

This post is going to make me sound a little crazy. I know that and I'm acknowledging it. Ok, moving on. Last week, on the last day of classes, I had worn earmuffs and gloves to campus through the biting cold. We had pizza and wine in my Poetic Forms class, and I'd had a couple of glasses of wine to try to calm my nerves since we were going straight to our class reading afterward. It was a short jaunt between buildings so I didn't put on any of my winter gear. When we finally got out a couple of hours later, I realized I'd left my shearling earmuffs from New Zealand and my super thin cycling gloves I use for photographing in cold weather. By this time, the building was locked. The next day when I was on campus, I forced myself to go back and see if they were there. For 20 minutes I checked with the departments to see if anyone'd turned anything in. But when I finished that and my only other option was to go floor to floor looking for the janitor to see if he'd seen them (arguably the one person who would have), I decided against it. I was tired. I had revisions to do. It already felt like too much time invested.

In the interim, I've thought about it more. I realized that the same thing happened in Santa Cruz. I'd had a gorgeous red cashmere blend sweater that I'd shed while TA'ing one afternoon. I'd put on my coat and left, completely forgetting about the sweater. But here's the thing. I went and checked with the main office the next day and they gave me the number to call the janitor and see if anyone had turned it in. But I didn't do it. Something about it wasn't worth it to me, but I couldn't put my finger on it. But now I think I've figured it out. Subconsciously, or at the very edge of my consciousness, I force myself to accept losing. It's something I think I should inure myself to. Why is that? Perhaps the answer is in the fact that it happens so frequently for me. Losing was once far more devastating to me. Necklaces in particular: I lost a lovely Celtic cross coin necklace a friend had given me. He'd received it during his confirmation in the Catholic church, but had given it to me as a token of how much my friendship meant to him. I have no idea where or when it went. But one day, I didn't have it. In New Zealand, I had bought an opal necklace that the shopkeepers referred to as the "window to the soul." It was a lovely raw opal with mustard/amber colored rock on one side and blue/purple on the other side, with a clear space in the middle that had little flecks of pink when turned at the right angle. I'm convinced I lost it at the bottom of the frozen Penobscot River during one of my documentary outings there in 2002.

And the people are a whole other thing. My friend Christie was just gone one day. No explanation, no discernible misdeeds or bad blood between us. Mary? We let a boy get between us. I was at fault in that one. And the corpus of my poetry would be about 80% lighter without the men I've lost. So when I read this prompt asking me to name the 11 things that I should rid myself of in 2011, it felt false to use it as a new year's resolution. I will lose 10 pounds. I will lose my penchant for procrastination. I will get rid of this negative influence in my life. I think that when I need to lose something, it leaves me. It decides to stay on the back of a chair in a coffee shop; it stops calling me on the phone. And for the most part? I let it. No "rage, rage against the dying of the light." After all, this is one of the biggest lessons in life, is it not? The learning how to lose, the letting go. I guess I'm more interested to know what it is people are trying to hold onto.

One Art

by Elizabeth Bishop

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 loved 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!) like disaster.