I Left My Foot in the Snow...and other things I've Left Behind Elsewhere

I did what?!

There is something called Stabilicers, rubber attachments with metal posts for the ice, which you attach to your shoes, to prevent you from slipping and tripping. We had another ice storm on Thursday, but I didn't try them on until Friday and yesterday.

It's very cool to crunch the ice with confidence, knowing I don't have to cling to a stranger's car for dear life!:-) Walk anywhere! Stomp everywhere! Sock it to me, ice and snow!

I did not realize until early this morning, when hubby and I set out to Rite Aid to get our "freebates", that only one of my Stabilicers was on my shoe. What happened to the other? I know I put them on my shoes while on the bus, on the way home from the library yesterday. How could I NOT know it came off? I was thinking it had to come off while walking in the icy snow because they make a lot of noise walking on non-icy surfaces, like pavement. I would have to retrace my steps from the bus stop...

Outside, hubby and I looked and looked.

Lo and behold! In a small field separating the apt complex and the street, the lone empty "shoe" was lying on the icy snow close to the sidewalk, as if I had just slipped my hiking boot out of it, like a slipper. It looked so lonely there by itself! Who would've wanted to pick it up when it was only one side? I was NOT looking forward to walking lopsided, that's for sure! And you might imagine how put out I was this morning when I only discovered one attachment was on my shoe as I had just bought them last month and only worn them one day!

That wasn't the only thing I thought I lost yesterday. I wore a pair of dangly earrings to work, ones I bought myself for my b-day last year. One side keeps falling out. I thought maybe I left them at work--but thanks to hubby's good eyes, he spotted the missing half on the floor near my slippers.

I often lose a half of a pair of earrings. It makes me scared to think I may only have half a brain! But not really. I had gotten a third hole in my ear when I met my husband--as a "souvenir" of our first days together...on top of the fact that I kept losing half of many pairs of earrings and thus ended up with a lot of oddball earrings. Where would I put them? In a third hole! I got a fourth one two birthdays ago to mark my 40th year on earth, so now I'm even.:-)

What else have I forgotten? I've left behind my sweaty shirt in the ladies' locker room at my taekwondo school more than a few times (pew!), a favorite glittery pen at school, an extra grocery bag at the grocery store (the contents of which the employees returned to the shelves!%-0), and lord knows what else. Of course, I usually don't remember I've left something behind until I'm halfway home or all the way home from the place where I had left something.

It probably means that I was in too much of a hurry to get someplace else. My mind was elsewhere! How else would I be oblivious to the fact that my shoe attachment fell off while I was marching onward towards my apt? Or that I couldn't wait to get home and thus quickly swept everything off the desk (actually, massage table) that I thought was mine? Or that I was in a hurry to catch the bus and left my sweaty shirt hanging in the locker room?

Maybe I should take better heed of all the buddhist writings I've been reading lately. Zen master and poet Thich Nhat Hanh writes,

"Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others."

(from Peace is in Every Step)

I think that the more I realize this, the more challenging it is to attain a calm sense of mind and keep distractions at bay. Why do I believe this? Because I understand that I can choose to be mindful of my thoughts or not.

Better yet, when I feel I'm in a hurry, I ought to think of my fil (father in-law) at the dinner table, when he usually says, "I ain't going anywhere--are you? Are we in a hurry?" To which everyone else will say no, and he'll reply, "I didn't think so. Let's eat!"
:-)