My life with Kamalashila has had many moments of things being lost. Things being left on trains, in cars, in jackets left in people’s houses, objects sliding out of pockets into tall grasses. Once, after searching for them for a long time, I found his glasses in a pair of shoes. Somebody posting back a passport or some medication. Glasses escaping into the recesses of car seats. Retrieving items usually involves a dedicated search. I am good at that. But sometimes items have been irrecoverably lost. A phone in a field. Numerous hats on public transport. I remember him looking for his iPad. Thinking back he thought he might have used it last on a visit to the Netherlands. Phoning the air company, it turned out it had been found in a seat pocket on the plane. I am glad we phoned. Freedom passes slipping out, never to be seen again. On one occasion: pickpockets in Barcelona. Though one other attempt in a crowd was avoided. When he complained, the woman involved starting shouting that he was trying to touch her up. I was quite indignant about that allegation. A phone travelling on its own on the train from Somerleyton to Ipswich. We could follow its course on the FindMy app. A cleaner found it under a seat and posted it back. We sent money for flowers. The joy and the relief of finding things when you thought they were lost.
Hats. Jackets. Jumpers. Keys. Glasses. Phones. Passes. He will hate it that I write this. He will tell me it is not quite so bad. But what I am doing is looking back at these moments. And recalling quite a number over the years. Not finding things for him is often a matter of simply not having enough energy. This morning he was too tired to go out after unsuccessfully having tried to find his keys. I found them fairly quickly in the pocket of a thin jacket that was hiding under a cushion on the couch. Small heart-squeezing moments of loss. Preparing perhaps for bigger losses. Things being lost, never to be found again. Rigdzin Shikpo wrote “Death is like going to the dentist to have your tooth pulled, but then it is your whole body.” Where does it all go? My heart is a bit lost right now.