Lost and Found
I erased every memory from that time in my life. Are you sure you want to permanently delete the items in the Trash? You can’t undo this action. I click. Empty Trash. Then, I kept a journal. I placed photos in an album. Neat captions in all caps below each image. Happy hour, Leary School peeps, October 1997. Clayman, age 14 months, Hilton Head, NC, 2004. Pi Phi Fall formal, University of Richmond, senior year, 1991. If I weren’t me, I would be the photographer. I travel the world, take the pictures, and craft the captions. “Randy, Randy, Randy!” The sorority girls called out to the photographer. Take a picture of me. I am here. See me. When I was in middle school, my signature gift was a framed photo collage. In box-like clear plastic frames, I piece together the intersection of stories. The photos are meticulously trimmed to decorate and remove excess. One year for Father’s Day, I made one for my Dad. I rummaged through the family photos. My mother pointed out, when she saw the finished product, that there was not one photo of her. A trip can be a journey and a fall.
Before I held the whole world in the palm of my hands, I took photos with a camera. I purchased 35mm film in small, opaque or translucent canisters with snap-on lids. Twelve, twenty-four, or thirty-six exposures. I waited. Delayed gratification. A trip to the drugstore to drop off the film. A shot in the dark. Tucked into paper envelopes with a funky, red K against a yellow background, the photos separated from the negatives. Kodak. A hit or a miss. Either way, a strike.
The memories are forgotten along the way. They are stored in drawers and boxes, destroyed in damp basements, or displaced in moves to and from. A choice is made with each roll. Do I lose myself in the memories or lose the memories themselves? If I chose the latter, a phone did not remind me each year of what I preferred to forget.
When I lost my cool during bath time, Clay, age five, advised, “Miss Mastrianni says we should do more warm fuzzies and less cold pricklies.” I suppressed my thoughts on Miss Mastrianni’s words of wisdom. No cursing out the Kindergarten teacher during bath time was a policy I didn’t know I had until then. A memory can be a warm fuzzy and a cold prickly. Which is kept? Which is lost? Are they able to be disconnected? Like my middle school photo collages, I manicure each memory for maximum beauty.
Things I have lost:
Hair—to the Dorothy Hamill cut of the mid 1970s; to a pixie cut like the one Winona Ryder donned circa the late 90s and early 2000s; to a dye job in graduate school when I thought I wanted to be a redhead; to bangs too many times to count, because I never learn that they just don’t work for me; to a spiral perm, New Jersey, late 1980s; to keratin treatments straightening the curly hair that came out of the woodwork after Clay was born. The grass is always greener. To perimenopause, because she’s kind of a bitch.
My virginity—on the second floor of Gray Court, fall semester 1989. University of Richmond.
Patience—with Clay when he lost hats, gloves, and Under Armour sweatshirts at Central School, and again, as a college student, when he lost eyeglasses. Twice. With my mom, for no apparent reason. Comedian Nick Kroll jokes, “I have no shorter fuse with anyone in my life than I do with my own mother.” It is true. I am sorry, Mom.
My way—in 6th grade when I purposely did not give a girl in my class a cupcake on my birthday. Two times with Jen Abbott, on hikes in People’s Forest in search of the Jesse Girard trail. On a cold Sunday afternoon in January in the McLean Game Refuge, hiking with my black lab, Bromley. Seven months pregnant. Me, not Bromley, Back to my table at Cat’s wedding reception, because I had been overserved. Out of Lil’ Frankie’s restaurant in the East Village. With Gretchen, for the same reason. In romantic relationships, when I thought I could change him, but the person who needed changing was me. On Hilton Head Island, circa 1975, when I left my three-year-old brother on a bike ride, because he would not do exactly what I demanded. Here, I wonder why a five-year-old and a three-year-old were permitted to bike alone. It was the 70s, I guess.
My ruptured appendix on Wednesday, March 19, 2025.
Myself in the music—at my very first concert. Journey. 7th grade. Grooving to the Dead & Company, Halloween night 2015 at Madison Square Garden with Julie Levin. Senior year of college road trips to the Allman Brothers at Merriweather Post Pavilion and the Jerry Garcia Band at Hampton Coliseum. August and November 1991. Crosby, Stills, and Nash in the third row after scalping tickets at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, NJ with Meredith Nelson. Graham Nash winked at me. Three weeks later, same venue, same scalper, and same row. With Mom. Eric Clapton. While making dinner accompanied by any Curious Music Fan playlist. Whenever Night Moves by Bob Seger comes on. Singing along to Take It Easy by the Eagles in my Jeep, top down, with Meg Thomas. The Jeep’s top, of course, not ours. Dirty Rush, University of Richmond. The one time in my life I could say, “I am with the band.” End of summer country music shows with the happy hour crew, et al., Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA. Jamming with Clay, Rock Camp, Martocchio Music, Simsbury, CT. The Last Waltz on repeat following Clay’s Blockbuster Video pick, February break, 2006. Phish, with Gretchen and her hometown friends, SPAC, Saratoga Springs, NY, July 6, 2013. Levon Helm and Sam Bush at a Midnight Ramble in Woodstock, NY. At church singing On Eagle’s Wings, usually at a funeral.
Collagen, skin elasticity, and flexibility. My cool, literally and figuratively. My memory, eyesight, and youth. See also perimenopause.
I throw the memories out there. To consider or destroy, I am not sure. A trip can be a journey or a fall. A strike can be a hit or a miss. Where do we wind up? At the beginning, at the end, or somewhere in the middle.
Thank you to Amanda Parrish Morgan for her early morning prompt on February 5, 2024. And thank you to Brian Arundel’s essay The Things I’ve Lost.
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