Keys to Adventure, Lost & Found

Sunrise [from our condo balcony] snapped by Figgy 
on a school morning this fall. 

It's uncanny, but sometimes H. and I have come this close to losing some pretty important things. I just drove from Clifton to Montclair Sunday [hell night with Punch] for a pumpkin glow event at Van Dyk Manor, which drew hundreds of people. It wasn't until I was driving back to the condo that I realized I had put my Lilly Pulitzer wallet on the roof of the car, when I was getting Punch into her car seat. But there it was, still on my roof, even after two hours parked at the pumpkin glow and a three-point turn on North Mountain Avenue.

Other ridiculously lucky near misses:

1. Cape May honesty. H. and I went to a Victorian bed and breakfast in Cape May for a few days. Close to departure, we meandered past the parking lot [across from the hotel, no guards], and I noticed our keys, hanging out of the hatchback on our little blue Honda Civic. Anyone could have taken them out and driven away with our car. We didn't realize they were missing. In our defense, we were young back then.
2. Cross-country scare. We drove across America in that same tiny car for two weeks the summer before we married. H. was writing 60-Second Novels along the way on his old Remington typewriter. [I flew back to work after we reached California, but H. drove back, writing more stories as he went.] In Cleveland, he set up his typewriter to do novels at a street festival. After we got into the car that night, he realized his wallet was gone. He wasn't sure if he had placed it on the roof of the car before we drove off, or if he had been pickpocketed. It had contained some cash that people paid him for the stories, plus some of our money for the trip. A trucker later found it on the side of the highway, and called H.'s Mom, up in Maine. The cash was gone, but the gold-hearted trucker mailed the wallet back. Poor Mary was worried--these were the days before cell phones. And my Sis was worried too, since she was staying at my apartment at the shore, and heard Mary leave a nervous message on my answering machine about a trucker finding H.'s wallet. 
3. Cape Cod luck. I have a very, very special set of keys to the North Eastham house--a set Dad gave me. His small red pocket knife hangs from the ring, and the bronze keys have little hand-written stickers on them, on which he had neatly written "FRONT DOOR" and "INSIDE DOOR." The stickers remain, but the ink is worn away after years and years of being carried in my pocket, backpack or beach bag--on the bike path, at Nauset Light Beach, on the ferry to Nantucket or at Great Pond. One trip, I had attached a spare car key to this set. And we drove all the way home, 300 miles, me telling H. how bad I felt that I lost those special keys. They make me feel like Dad is watching out for me when I unlock the door on Wonderstrand Way. Again, Lady Luck was on our side--when we arrived home with Figgy in the dark five hours later [after driving routes 6, 195 and 95, the Tappan Zee and the Parkway, with a couple of stops for food, caffeine, fuel and bathroom breaks], there were the keys, dangling from the trunk lock. I felt so relieved. They are one of my most precious treasures--keys to happy memories and refreshing breaks. Keys to the house my parents built.
4. A jewel in the snow. One of my favorite stories is one Dad tells about sledding in the Bronx when he was about 12. In the snow, he found a gold school ring with a red stone, from St. Catharine's Academy. I couldn't imagine what St. Catharine's Academy was, he says. I had never heard of it. But after college, when he met a pretty brunette in the carpool to Lederle Labs in Pearl River, NY, he found out. My mother and her close friends had attended the girls' school when it was in Washington Heights. I have the ring now. It has the year 1942 on it. Since my mother was born in August 1924, she would have been 18 at that time. Now I'm confused. Have to ask Dad tomorrow if this ring was Mom's, or the one he found. I know for sure that she had a golden basketball charm from St. Catharine's, b/c she played on the team. In any case, the ruby ring Dad found buried in the soft drifts was a very big clue to his future. 

Feeling fortunate--and like I want to start wearing this ring, as a reminder of all that was and all that can be. Of connections made and lucky days. Good night.

Per my faithful Wikipedia: St. Catharine High School is an all-girls, private Roman Catholic high school in the Bronx, New York. The Sisters of Mercy, founded by Mother Catherine McAuley in Dublin, Ireland, opened an Academy in the Washington Heights section of New York City in September 1889. At that time, the first Academy resembled the large estates which surrounded it. Toward the end of the century as registration increased, the Sisters erected a new building across the street at 539 West 152nd Street. In 1900 the University of the State of New York granted a Regents charter to the school.