Today was a sad day. My hat, the hat I scoured Tokyo shops for, meant to warm my ears for years hence, has been lost to a cold, premature death by the waterfalls of Lake Toya in Aomori prefecture.
Perhaps for an hour, it was hopeful of a happy reunion. Inevitably and all too quickly, that confidence faded with the residual warmth from my pocket. It lies collapsed somewhere, helpless and lifeless, that last shred of warmth long since sucked into muddy leaves and gray twilight.
The problem with group tours (okay, one problem) is that even when you realize you’ve dropped something, say, half an hour into a walk, you can’t go back for it. So maybe (just maybe) you jog back, intensely scanning the road, but after five minutes of blank trail, you have to turn back or you’ll hold up the bus. Also, maybe your dad is screaming at you and your mom shouldn’t be made to hold your stuff too much longer.
A replaceable accessory, yes. But I still feel like I’m letting someone down. Like disappointing a kid, or a puppy.
I know I could’ve found it. But I didn’t. And now it can’t be a hat, it has to be a decomposing lump of fabric, or maybe another scrap of nothing in the lost-and-found.
And all because I was careless.
Maybe I’m getting soft in old age. Or maybe I never outgrew an attachment to fuzzy things.
Bye, hat. I’m sorry.
fuzzy things? or soft, well-worn pieces of fabric occasionally resembling blankets that end up tattered and faded after years of use?…
Years of LOVE, I think you meant to say. And yes, that’s what I was thinking of. :(