I was out for a walk this afternoon. I came up to a young woman who was using a metal detector. When I got close enough I stopped and said “Hey, if I throw a coin in the long grass do you want to see who can find it first?” She laughed and thought I might win. She showed me her detector and what all the information on the display meant. It was indicating there was something four inches beneath where we stood. I asked if she had a shovel and she pulled a hand spade from her back pocket. She told me it was her first day trying the detector. She seemed to look at me for advice but I could only recount a time in high school when I lost a ring while swimming in a gravel pit. It was a gift so we rushed to my friends house and asked his mom for his detector. We rigged a plastic bag over the head so we could use it underwater. When we returned to the gravel pit I entered the water with the detector. I spotted my ring on the bottom. Where we were swimming had settled down and the water was clear again. I’m not sure what the meaning of these events might be but one truth could be that some of what we seek is always there it just seems to not be because we are blind at times. There have been times in my life when I could see nothing but my own pain. I remember a night or two in the Hole which were hopeless at best but I have been able to reclaim the things in my life that hold meaning for me. Many of these things I was in possession of all along I just could not see them in my suffering.

I should have stayed to help dig up the boulevard but I wished her well and continued on my walk.