Displacement

 The house never loses anything. At least that is the opinion expressed by my wife's grandmother. This was offered as a comfort to her children and later to her grandchildren. It was a colloquial restating of one of the laws of classical physics: matter cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system. That sounds like a pretty cool deal until one starts to peel back the definition of "isolated system." Your bedroom? Okay. Your dresser? Fine. Your entire house, including the basement? Not so fast, there Isaac Newton. 

We live in a Victorian built in 1895, and even though there have been times when the place feels crowded with just three of us and a cat roaming about, the surface area available on multiple levels can be quite intimidating. My wife and I routinely play a  game called, "Have You Seen My?" My glasses. My phone. My sock? My paycheck? And so on. After thirty years of cohabitation at three separate addresses, we continue to find ways to misplace things for minutes at a time. It is during those brief periods of insecurity that one's mind races to all the absurd locations that have little or nothing to do with reality. Ingested by the cat is a new favorite of mine, even though he is historically a finicky eater and sometimes skips his carefully prepared meals if they are not placed on the spot at the time he is insistent upon having them delivered. 

And then there are those always helpful probing questions: When was the last time you remember having your (missing item)? What was the last place you remember seeing your (lost ark)? These kind of interrogations tend to serve one primary function, and that is to make the subject become more confounded by the implied simplicity of the task. If I knew where it was, I would go where it was and pick it up. At which point the sound of my own mother reminding me that "it didn't just sprout legs and walk away," rings in my ears. Other aphorisms about how things "never stay lost" and "a place for everything and everything in its place" beg for review. 

This is usually just before a couch cushion is adjusted or a pile of papers is shuffled to reveal that whatever it was has revealed itself after the entire household and all activity has come to a halt while the keys have been located. At which point, the refrain "It's always in the last place you look," reminds us all of the ineffable. Which is why I tend, after finding the lost object, to make a point of looking in one more place. Just to be difficult. 

The relief in those moments cannot be overstated. The hiding place of that lone earbud or shoe should be cause for celebration, but I confess that I sometimes feel the need to prolong the feeling of confusion. "Where was it?" I will often shrug my shoulders and suggest that it doesn't matter, since the house never loses anything. 

Oh, but it does. Just not forever. And I should respect that.