Lost

The trouble with the sun is that it gets lost.

You’d think, over years and years and years of following relatively the same path, the sun would know its way around the earth, but I’ve come to realize that this is

not the case. Traveling from east to west isn’t as easy as it may first appear. There are distractions, apparently, along the way — thunderstorms, hurricanes, cloud cover, and the occasional rendezvous with the moon for an eclipse every now and then.

In our case, living in the Pacific Northwest, the sun can get lost quite easily for the distractions are as plentiful as the stars. I don’t mind it when the sun gets distracted every now and again, but lately, it seems as if the sun has forgotten all about its duties — chiefly, to bring us warmth and happiness by making an appearance every now and again.

So it was this week. Yes, the sun showed up on Wednesday for a brief and glorious time, but Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday through Sunday, it got lost again, wandering off to some distant land like Phoenix (as if they don’t get their fair share of visitations!) and Australia and South Africa. I’m not exactly sure the specifics of the sun’s job description, but I don’t think numerous vacations to warmer climes is part of it.

At least, I would hope not. But lately, with all this rain, cold dampness, and lack of bright light in the sky, I’m beginning to wonder.

I don’t know much about getting lost — it’s only happened once or twice in my lifetime — but this week I’ve done a lot of pondering about it because, on top of the sun getting lost, Gretchen seems to have lost her camera battery charger. I’ve watched her again and again scour the house — every bag, every nook and cranny, and inside every shoe (yes every shoe…and there are a lot of them in this house) — looking for the little black plug-in that charges up the two camera batteries and allows us to photograph our weekly events.

When the second battery died on Thursday, Gretchen began her search because not only do the batteries allow us to take pictures, in order to get the pictures we did take off of the camera and onto the computer (and then onto my blog), we need to turn the camera on. Dead batteries = no functioning camera = no photos from the week.

So I apologize for the lack of current visuals on this post, but once we find that charger (or perhaps buy a new one), my words and older pictures of our clients will have to suffice. (I tried to choose older pictures when the sun wasn’t lost…)

But my point about this all is that watching Gretchen both frantically and calmly (depending on her mood) try to find the charger gave me an idea — perhaps the sun is merely lost because it doesn’t think anyone is looking for it. I mean, when I got lost way back when I was a puppy, the first thing I did when I realized I was no longer connected to my moms and had no clue where I was or where I was headed, I looked up and started searching. I looked everywhere. I even whimpered a bit and though it felt like hours of being lost (it was actually only a few minutes in the woods) what made me find my way home was the sound of my moms’ voices and their desire to be as connected to me as I desired to be connected to them.

So my theory with the sun is that we’ve somehow lost our connection. The sun is out there wandering around and it just can’t hear our voices calling it back home. Maybe this is because no one is calling (we’ve given up hope). Maybe this is because, over time, the sun decided we no longer wanted to be connected and gave up trying to find us or maybe we’ve somehow angered the sun (not enough appreciation, talking smack about it behind its fiery back, taking advantage of it when it does make an appearance?) and the sun has decided to teach us a lesson.

I don’t know, but I’m thinking that if we all wish really hard, if we all look up from our busy lives and call out the sun’s name, it might just find its way back here. You see, I think we have to “reconnect” or at the least, show the sun that we really want to be connected and maybe then the sun will want to connect back up with us.

This may not work, but I know I’m going to try really hard in this upcoming week to call the sun’s name and search for it wherever I go. If you all agree to do the same, it just might work. Will you join me?

(And maybe, while you’re at it, you can call out the battery charger’s name, too…I have a feeling that both the sun and the charger are vacationing in Mexico! But it’s worth a try!)

Thanks for your help,

Rubin