Insignificant

It may be a sure-fire way to avoid enlightenment, but I find I'm feeling loss over the fact that my favorite necklace, a kind of collier du jour, toujours, is, well, lost.

It was already gone before the show of the same name came on last night at 8. It's been out of sight since Tuesday, but I only noticed today.

Of course I've looked everywhere, trying to guess what possible physics could have landed the silver-strung slip of tiny freshwater pearls into a sock drawer, for example, falling from the always-place where it I put it.

Lately, the many-years-old necklace has been added to, a jade turtle, a gift from mon mari, and so there, dang-it, there's even more emotional significance rubbed onto the metal, stone and nacre, all stolen from the earth, I'll be the first to admit.

It's so hard to be unmaterialistic.

I met a woman on the plane Sunday night, coming home from Ohio, where I had been immersed in a girl thing/writing thing since Friday night, and she herself was returning to her River Market loft from a mountain adventure of some kind near Atlanta.

She is a very grounded-seeming successful multi-business owner, something in technology, and she had recently downsized from a five-acre estate, large house, things.

"I sold everything," she said. With emphasis and a wipe-out hand gesture, she repeated it and conveyed that lightness we all hope for, a form of happiness. She wasn't righteous or boasting, happened to be a vegetarian, said stopping animal products stopped her arthritis and other pains, and admitted to keeping one item "of the past." Her grandmother's table.

She mentioned that "the kids were grown," and so what else do you do?

She was spending off accumulated American Express points, hence the mountain get-away. A month or so ago, she was in New Mexico playing at one of those indoor skydiving places.

I would have a hard time determining which of my grandmother's things to keep. I have quite a number of boxes, when it's all said and done, of antique dishes and glassware, some of which we actually use. The 78s I never listen to, the Underwood that weighs 15 pounds, the toddler-sized bisque-faced doll that thankfully for now my mother is stewarding and using as decoration, are these things holding me back?

Jewelry is small and easy to pack. To be sure, jewelry's size makes it prone to disappearing. The silver filligree necklace I adopted from my mom's 60s reject pile, the silver hoop garnet earring, my turtle-and-pearl necklace, all gone.

Once I lost a ring in a pile of leaves, out in a backyard that was literally a half-acre. Determined, I did end up finding it.

I have checked all the "leaf piles," though, and have turned up zilch. I hate thinking I must not have been paying attention at some point in the recent past.

I know I had it on when I was on the plane coming home. After that, I don't recall.

Relying on your memory or sense of attention is dangerous. We do it all the time. I do it at work, and without a reliable copyeditor, my lapses are doomed to show up in print. But if you can't trust yourself, who can you rely on?

We're so imperfect, especially in terms of what we recall or think we can recall.

It's gross watching your brain lose track of itself, moment upon moment, year after year.

Stay sharp, they advise, hinting that crossword puzzles can help do the trick. The thing is, though, you just never know when the old noggin is going to give out.

I hope that tackling the laundry will reveal a necklace. Cosmic reward for beating procrastination?

One of these days one of us is going to lose a wedding ring, and then, well, that will just be sad.

Three years seems about right for the odds against doing so to be running thin.