Lost Journal

[Teresa]

For three hours the blue journal was lost at Fort Bend Music Center where my six year old daughter takes piano lessons.  For those three hours, two years of my life were exposed to any stranger who happened to pick them up.

 

I didn't realize the hardcover journal was missing until I cleaned out my car this afternoon, the shock of its absence like losing a wallet and a child. 

 

I called Gita and left a message because who but a dear Sixer would understand what's at stake when a journal is lost, a journal with so many notes for a future book, with messy feelings and secrets and clumsy steps toward understanding this mess of a life?

 

The parking lot was full when I arrived at the music center to look for the lost journal so I rapidly zigzagged between people to get to the now empty back room where I'd sat with my daughter three hours earlier, but the journal was gone.

 

I looked on the floor, on piano benches, behind the teacher's desk then finally on a tall bookcase where I found the blue secrets tucked between Mozart sheet music and workbooks for five year olds. 

[Teresa]

@Brittany ~ My handwriting is awful.  And I have to face the music center this morning at 10 AM for my 6 yr old's piano class.  Imagine the stares and snickers...  Facing the music.  In 37 years I've never left a journal unattended.  Crazy.  The funny part is they may be wondering why the blue book is missing from the shelf where they put it.  Maybe they were just getting started, planned to come back to it after lunch.  Then it was gone.  Will they mention they found it last Saturday, saved it for me and now it's missing from their shelf?  Will I mention that I retrieved it when no one was around? Twilight Zone music...

[Brittany]

i bet you have a beautiful handwriting. how can anyone who writes not hold their breath while reading this. thankfully, someone picked it up and tucked it away!

[Stephen Torelli]

Your intuition led you to the journal. Never give in and glad you found it.

[Bill Floyd]

Cloooose call.  Luckily, my handwriting is to terrible no one could ever make out anything I've put down in script.  Suggestion: transcribe and MAKE COPIES.  It won't cut down on the fear of strangers reading your innermost, but it will save you the panic of years of work disappearing.

[Javed Baloch]

Oh that is every writer's worst nightmare! So glad that you found it, eventually. Cheers to that!

[Mike Handley]

This is why I will never agree to be hypnotized.

[Teresa]

@Gita ~ How did you know?  I soothed the aftershocks of panic with Three Olives.  Two shots.  Kicked my arse for some reason.  Interestingly, my husband didn't think I should panic while the journal was lost, so when I got it back I quoted a passage about him.  He has bruises on his chin now. 

[Gita]

YES. Like losing a wallet and a child. That says it all.

Losing a word file comes a distant second because the word file is on one's private computer but a journal could be read by anyone. Passed around, even.  I hope you celebrated with some Three Olives.

 

 

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

After Angela's comment, I have nothing to say.  (But I do understand the panic.  That's why I write fiction.)

[Angela]

Only thing that could be worse would be arriving to find your child's music teacher reading it aloud to the kids who work behind the counter after school.  Gods be praised.