Balance

In the last month of 2020, someone broke into my car. It was pelting with rain and I was out walking a dog. The thieves punched in the locking mechanism on my passenger car door and rifled through my possessions. Their haul included my favourite backpack; extra rain gear; a dry bag; a sitting mat; a metal water bottle; spare change; a wallet of personal CDs; my mother’s favourite neck warmer; items that were en route for a charity shop; a thermos of ginger tea; my lunch (a cheese and avocado sandwich)and my 2021 diary.

After the initial feeling of violation, which I purged by showering curses to the rainy sky, I moved into bewilderment at having 2021 symbolically cancelled before it began. This was followed by more poignant regret at having lost my deceased mother’s neck warmer and rare physical traces of my long dead father in the form of words and their definitions written in his distinct spidery hand.

Over the course of several days, as I let go of my attachment to all of these items, I came to know for certain that anything of significance already lives inside me. I carry the love that the neck warmer represents; I hold the resonance of those words penned so carefully in ink on a piece of card.

Fast forward to January 16th, 2021. My phone rings and a kindly man tells me he has found my backpack, discarded in woods not too far from the scene of the crime. He and his wife had taken the bag home, unpacked its contents and found my contact details in the sodden diary which they laid out in front of their fire. In their cosy sitting room, all of us masked except two gorgeous Black Labradors who offered their own welcome, I was re-united with my backpack, rain gear, sitting mat, and dry bag as well as the neck warmer and the piece of card.

A kind deed set against a thoughtless one; the act of letting go unexpectedly rewarded. Every act, small or large, kind or unkind, rippling out to touch others and the larger world.