Missing

I lose a glove with no explanation.

To set the stage, I wear gloves when I work. Depending on the type of work I have three pair. Yesterday, to mow, I wore my thinnest, they come almost to my elbow, covering my forearm from sun and brush. At one point, something called me inside. While there, I saw I had a text. I removed one glove, answered the text, did something else in the house and something else again. When finished, I went to put on my glove. It was gone.

I looked on the couch, in the kitchen, in the utility room, in the bathroom, and in the bedroom. I ran that circuit at least three times. I looked under things, and behind things. No glove. I could feel my bile rising. I resisted. Although I thought it was crazy to lose a single glove of a fairly large size, I surrendered and went back to work with one glove. As I mowed, I thought how nice it was to have avoided surrendering to the anger I would have felt in my youth.

I knew at some point the glove would show up and sure enough it did. As I mowed the back lots, it fell into my lap. Literally. Dropped as if by an angel. I looked down at it in surprise. From a more prosaic perspective, it fell off the shoulder where I had draped it to answer the text. As I put on the glove, it made me laugh to think of me walking through the house looking for a glove that was right there on my shoulder, like missing sunglasses perched on my head. It also made me realize how foolish I would have been if I had gotten angry. And with a little tinge of sadness that the lesson came so late in life, I mowed.