The Parable of the Lost Bat

My friend Trekking Left asked, now that I've started Knit Another Planet, if Fuller & Fuller will be retired. I thought I would answer with a parable. Or a metaphor. Or maybe it's just a symbolic incident.

Earlier this year, we drove across the country to pick up a surplus step van in North Carolina. On the way back, we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. The man remembered going as a boy, and I had never been. I am so happy we spent the extra time, and risked ironically running out of gas in the abandoned oil fields of Texas to see the enormous cave. It was spectacular.

As a souvenir, I bought a pair of silver earrings shaped like bats—real bats, not Batman stencil bats. Tragically, I lost one of them before we got to San Diego, a casualty of napping in the back seat. I remember this trip as a wonderful adventure. While I try to avoid daily driving, I'm a sucker for a road trip.

Just last week, the man came into the room with a "Look what I found!" And sure enough, five months later, there is my missing earring, just in time for Halloween, our favorite holiday. Of course, in the meantime, the not-lost earring had found its own secret hiding place. It would have been reasonable to get rid of it, and I thought maybe I had. Dang it.

Last Friday, the man came into the room and said "I'm going to the store to buy some milk. Want anything?" Except instead of "the store," he said "Canada." And instead of "some milk," he said "an RV." And he didn't ask me if I wanted anything. If he had, I probably would have said that I wanted us to spend Halloween together.

Two things happened Saturday, my husband left for Canada, and I found the second bat earring. I doubted that I'd ever be able to wear my bat earrings again, but here they are, dangling from my ears as I type this, with all my thoughts circling between them.