Lost and Found

A Round Trip, Anticipation, and the Cat

There are, in this world, connections that seem to exceed their rational boundaries.  When in moments of doubt I often think back on situations where, for whatever reason, something was being demonstrated.  It’s as if I were a captive audience to a game being played with my comings and goings, losses and gains.

In March of 1992 I was invited by my old accompanist teacher and friend Eileen to participate in an intensive dance program at James Madison University in Virginia, where I would accompany a series of modern dance classes.  Always appreciating more work and wanting to see my friend and her husband Dan, I accepted the offer and prepared to leave New York by train.

A day before I was to depart, I took myself to a fast-food restaurant on Fifth Avenue.  Still not quite acclimated after more than six years of New York dos and don’ts, I hung my winter coat complete with wallet in inside pocket on my chair as I ate.  Upon leaving the restaurant, I proceeded south on Fifth Avenue, at the same time feeling for the spot where the wallet was supposed to be and found the cloth flat.  The wallet had been removed – picked as it were!  Now I understood the importance of never letting a wallet leave my side.  In a trusting move only a few years earlier I had left another wallet in my coat at a Broadway show during intermission, only to find afterward that someone had removed it.  There went a Mark Cross wallet my father had given me, and now here was another loss, arrived through similar naiveté.