Miracle at Macy’s

It’s a Friday morning, and as I set out in my car to run some errands, I notice that my engagement ring is not on my finger. This is not alarming because my routine is to take the ring off when I am playing the piano; if I am not at home, I always put it in the zippered coin section of my wallet for safekeeping. Melinda and I had had a piano session at her house in the afternoon of the previous day — Thursday — and I remember taking the ring off and putting it in the coin pocket at some point during the lesson.

I pull over to the side of the street, take out my wallet, unzip the coin pocket and search for the ring.

It’s not there.

Maybe it somehow fell out of the coin pocket into the bottom of my purse. I take everything out of the purse and, with anxiety mounting, search for my ring.

It’s not there.

By this time, my whole body feels flushed as I begin to face the reality that I have no idea where the ring is.

I start to mentally trace back to where I had gone on Thursday afternoon after my piano lesson. I remember going to the Sentry Grocery Store and to Macy’s Department Store at Hilldale Mall. Suddenly I remember, too, that I had paid in cash at Macy’s and that some loose change fell out onto the floor while I was making the purchase. I had picked up the loose coins. But, . . . oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!

The worst case scenario seemed to be that the cleaning people who go through after the store closes for the night would not have seen the ring if it was on the floor, and it would have been swept up and deposited who knows where with who knows what in the trash bin. Or, much better, maybe someone had found it and turned it in to Lost and Found. Or maybe someone had found it and kept it. Or maybe it wasn’t there, nor had it ever been there, and I would have to try hard to figure out where else I might have lost the ring.

In fear and trembling, I drive back to Macy’s, enter the door, and go directly to the counter where I had made my purchase the day before. As I walk up to the counter, my eyes staring fiercely at the floor, I see the ring! It is, indeed, on the floor, right where I had stood the day before, sort of tucked into a corner of the baseboard of the counter. Just lying there as if it is waiting for me. This seems unbelievable. I get so excited that I burst forth to a customer who is standing nearby, “That’s my ring! I lost it here yesterday!” The clerk hears me and she gets all smiles and shares my moment of relief and amazement. It’s like a miracle!

A miracle at Macy’s!

Sally’s Tale of the Wild Things

Last week, we spent several days “up north” at Howie and Sally’s cottage on Oxbow Lake. It’s a great place to relax and to experience some remnants of wildness — bald eagles, loons, deer, wild turkeys, once in a while a bear.

Soon after we arrived, Sally shared with us the tale of an early spring experience.  It is the story of an encounter with wildlife in their cottage world.  It’s a simple tale, yet it touched me deeply.

The Tale

Early this spring, upon their arrival at the cottage, absorbed in the flurry of activity involved in settling in for comings and goings all summer long, Sally looked up through her kitchen window to see a doe standing only a few feet away, staring at her. The deer literally stayed there for the rest of the day, determinedly staring toward the window.

The next day, the doe was out of sight, but all day long Sally and Howie heard her — a sort of bleating sound coming from somewhere in the woods nearby.  On and on it went, with almost no let-up  — a sound full of distress and agitation.

On the third day, the bleating stopped.  At some point later that day, Howie was startled to discover a dead newborn fawn, lying in a small space below one corner of the deck. What sounded so mournful the day before was, indeed, just that:  Or so it certainly seemed.

Surely, this was an experience of being truly a part of a wild creature’s world for a brief period of time.  A doe’s desperate sharing of distress. A doe trying so hard to communicate with two humans.  And for Howie and Sally, a brief but poignant connection with one of the wild things of the world and a glimpse into its inner life.

 

 

 

 

 

And to the “Woods,” Again

In my previous posting (I Went to the Woods), I described the woods near my childhood home and its meaning to me as a source of play and pretending.  My good colleague Virginia Dickie sent me a thoughtful comment: she wrote, “…it made me wonder how many kids today get that sort of opportunity for unsupervised play outside the house!”

I have thought about that, too, especially related to our granddaughters as they have been growing up.  Our son John and his family live in a newer neighborhood in a municipality that borders Madison. The house they purchased when moving here from out East is on a 2/3 acre lot; the very back part of the lot is undeveloped and sort of a tangle of trees and grasses and vines.  This small “wild” backyard area has provided the girls with a place for unstructured play, a sort of childhood respite from the otherwise landscaped lawns of the nearby homes.

When Carolyn was 7 or 8 years old, she and a neighborhood friend built a “hide-out” in the back corner of their lot.  When we were over visiting one day, we were allowed to peek into the hiding place.  I remember appreciating the fact that these children had an area of the yard that they could mess around in, where they could create a special place for themselves, and where they could enjoy some imaginative unsupervised play.

That is the kind of play that was so important to me as a child.  Indeed, building on what Virginia said, how many kids today have opportunities for daily outside unsupervised and unscripted play that they structure themselves?

Something to think about.

Thank you to those of you who shared with me memories of your own childhood woods, and the “houses” you made in a carpet of pine needles or fallen leaves.