The spoon

Sometimes I remember things. I notice things, strange, disconnected probably totally random things. Yet they are engraved in my memory.

Sometime ago I left my home early in the morning. As I walked on that icy cold morning, the wind hitting me on the face and the frost crunching underneath my feat, I was planning my day. It was a busy, yet normal day. I had a lot of things to do, but nothing really unusual was on my mind. There were no major projects happening in my life, nothing in particular to look forward to.

As I walked briskly, something on the ground attracted my attention. It was a spoon! There was nothing special or unusual about this spoon, except that it was left there on the curb. It was an odd place to leave a perfectly good looking spoon. Someone out there must be sitting to their breakfast right now, with cereal in their bowl, milk added and no spoon! Could that really be true? Would someone really own only one spoon and then drop it on the curb without noticing? Why would they be out on the street with their only spoon anyway?

Nah, they probably have other spoons. They must have a whole collection, with forks and knives too. That is how people live. That is how spoons live. They are never alone. They are always in groups. They live with other spoons, just like them. Sometimes they work alone, but most of the time they work with others, similar but different, like forks and knives. The spoon must be miserable. Lying there alone and unloved in the gutter.

All things must die, but what a horrible death. No one came to look for it, not one bothering to pick it up. Even I ignored it as I walked past, planning my day.

Today I was going to get a lot done. I had a full schedule of meetings, catchups, reports to write, phone calls to make. It was going to be a productive day. I was going to end it somewhere else. I was going to my other home.

I felt too scattered. I have too many homes. Too many places to forget things. Too many places to belong and I just end up belonging to none. I don't like that. I want to just be in one place. I just need to be myself, to stop planning, to just live for now. but I can't. I have to perform. Wear my confidence and independence on the outside as I wade though life, day by day.

This day was no different. There was praise, acknowledgment, disappointment, small successes and small failures. There were talks and fake smiles as well as genuine ones. There were tears that never had a chance to see the light of day. It was exhausting.

As I drove the long drive home, at the end of a long and exhausting day, the sort of day that had really taken a lot out of me. I felt mangled and tied up. I wondered, how was that spoon doing now? Had anyone noticed it? Had anyone helped it? or was it still lying there in desperation? Had the harsh sun twisted and mangled it beyond all hope?

As I parked my car and opened the door to get out. My weary eyes glanced something. Something very strange and unusual in the gutter. Here hundreds of kilometers away, in the mud it was there. It was unmistakable. It was a fork! I should have picked up that spoon. I should have brought it with me. It was too late then. I would have to live with this forever. I could have helped, but I chose to abandon, and now I too would be abandoned.