by Simon Pais-Thomas'
I read the most beautiful poem in LIFE IS A VERB by Patti Digh last night. I love this book – Patti has taken what could be a hackneyed subject–how would you live if you had 37 days left? – and made it sing through her deep heart and generously wonderful writing. The poem that moved me so is at the beginning of the first chapter and my favorite lines are:
“Being lost only has meaning
When contrasted with
Knowing where you are
A presumption that slipped out of my life
As quietly as smoke up a chimney
For now I live in a less anchored place
Where being lost is irrelevant”
I found the poem strangely comforting as if being lost was not such a bad thing once you got used to it and what is lost and what is found anyway? Then Patti reveals that the poem was written by a man in the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Hmmm… still, I felt comforted. So many people tell me they feel lost and bewildered; does that make bewildered the new black and does it look good on everybody? I mean, if so many of us are feeling lost, at least in some parts of our lives, could it mean we are looking for a new found, a new territory that we can’t even imagine but we certainly can’t find the way we found our way the last time?
I’m getting lost writing this post.
Which leads me to all that I know today for sure about being lost and found which is: we have to accept being lost before we even think about being found and we have to accept that being found may never feel or look the way it did before we got lost this time. We have to let go of the story that being found or “knowing what we are doing” is better than where we are right now.
What does lost and found mean to you these days?
Related posts:
7 responses so far ↓
1 Karen Aug 26, 2008
Going Home the Longest Way Around
(on being lost)
Going home the longest way around means I got lost somehow; the footpath of my dreams pulled me away from Bible drills and fears of hell, when the longest way around became the only way around for me. When I discovered getting lost is good because losing can only mean you’re closer to finding which is better than never beginning.
And while I was lost, I shed rags of clothes, like a trench coat after a rain storm until I stood naked in the summer steam which rises following such storms.
Now, naked with only humidity as my wrap, I am aware how peaceful being lost feels. My feet know every patch of dirt, could call each patch by name, the earth bearing the weight of who I am, me bearing the weight of who the earth is.
And I don’t know, standing here lost, if I’ll ever put on garments again, wear the polyester smile, the Dacron blend of complacency, the comfort of cotton when used to gag a mouth.
So forgive me those who loved me when I was found, but I’m going home the longest way around, thanks to many who have gone before, who’ve rid their souls of passivity, for those who stood naked after rain storms in name of being lost.
Right now a rotten core of hurt echoes inside my heart; just because you enjoy being lost doesn’t mean going home the longest way around will find you at the place you’ve always known when you arrive.
2 Jennifer Aug 26, 2008
Beautifully, hauntingly said Karen. There are no guarantees on this adventure, that’s for sure.
3 Karen Aug 26, 2008
I guess we must be lost, first and foremost. What is left after another “found” except a new lost?
Man, that’s too heavy even for me, I’m going to go lose myself in some ice cream.
I’ll let you know how lost I get in that. Life is good like that, being lost and eating ice cream. I’m such a sucker for these things.
Take care, Jennifer, on your wonderful journey.
4 Anne in Virginia Aug 28, 2008
You might enjoy a book I read last spring, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, by Rebecca Solnit. Keri Smith mentioned it in her blog (October 4, 2007) . As I was feeling a little lost myself at 56-turning-57, I picked it up and found it both comforting and thought-provoking. Solnit explores being lost in both a literal, geographical sense and in a metaphorical sense. An excerpt:
“Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go. Three years ago I was giving a workshop in the Rockies. A student came in bearing a quote from what she said was the pre-Socratic philosopher Meno. It read, “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is unknown to you?” I copied it down, and it has stayed with me since. [. . .] The question she carried struck me as the basic tactical question in life. The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation.”
Looking forward to hearing more about “Kindly Finding Yourself.”
5 Jennifer Aug 29, 2008
Thanks Anne, I’ll see if the library has it right how. And I love the quote!
6 Georgetta Aug 30, 2008
Thank you, Jennifer. My inner critic has been ruthless lately!
7 Life is a Verb » Comfort Queen Sep 27, 2008
[...] I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: I adore Patti Digh’s book Life is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally. I love her writing, her depth, her sizzle. This is a book that makes me sing with life and the possibilities we all have for transformation and awareness. It is the best antidote I’ve got these days for the pain and fear raging around us- that and loving hugs, long naps, frevent prayer and letting myself feel whatever I’m feeling. [...]