return

My scarf came back, too.

I found it in the last place I had on my list of places to look: the lost and found at my martial arts studio.

I was so glad to see it there at the top of the box. It was my last resort, and that scarf has a lot of sentimental value.

When I was in Ethiopia, I admired my new friend's scarf, but when we went to the scarf store (it was a coop where the scarves were hand-made by women who used to carry heavy loads of wood for a living), I didn't buy one just like it. There were too many other pretty things.

Over the next few days, though, I became more and more enamored with the one she had. It was orange with little streaks of green, and it seemed to look good with everything. I bemoaned my failure to buy one like it, but the shop was too far out of the way to get there again.

When I opened my suitcase in the Netherlands, there was her scarf, tucked between the layers of clothes. I've been wearing it with my blue KLM flight attendant coat every winter since. I love it, and I value it.

I was trying to let it go gracefully, to hold lightly to physical objects. But I'm so glad it came back.