Lost and Found

Malgosia... A long lost friend returns

I have spent a lot of time and effort in my life looking for traces of my past lost in the fog of passing years.  I don't know why I do it, most people are just content to let it go.  Still, I suppose my personal philosophy that we are the compendium of our experiences has had something to do with it.  I think that every challenge, sadness and joy that life has thrown at us makes us who we are as a person.  I think in some ways I am constantly undergoing a state of personal re-evaluation as I look back and trace the scattered lines of my mind in an attempt to find sense and consistency that likely doesn't exist.  While this may be true, it doesn't stop me from trying.

I think I also harbor the hope that in some ways those that have been formative or developmental in some way have felt the same about me.  That the feeling was mutual.  Sometimes I have peered behind the curtain of the past simply to say goodbye in a way I never did.  Sadly, at times the goodbye is simply a whisper that crosses my lips to vanish in the void of time and space that has claimed the lives of those whose ears will never meet my words.  The vast majority of time while the found seem happy, they ultimately do not share the reflection of life that I feel.  While my reappearance is a novelty, they long ago closed the chapter of their novel which involved me.  It now simply sits on a shelf to grow dusty and more insignificant with the passing of time.

I have seldom had the joy of being found by another.  Making a connection with the past in a way that was not sparked by my own mind and ambition.  Once as a student I visited Budapest, Hungary.  I stayed in the apartment of Maria Kollar an economist who with her husband was renting an extra room.  I spent an amazing afternoon talking with her about history and economics at a time when Marxist economics still ruled the Hungarian world.  I tried to keep in touch with a goal of returning someday to continue the conversation.  At some point a card came telling me she was moving.  The problem was, I couldn't read her writing!  I wrote with no response.  In a desperate attempt to find her I even tried to photo copy what she wrote and paste it on the envelope with the hope it was a secret Hungarian code only their postman would understand.  Still, despite my efforts the contact was lost.

Maria's Apt. Budapest circa 1988

Another and longer lasting friendship was correspondence based with a girl my age in Poland.  We exchanged letters during my university years.  I was a student of Eastern European History and Communist Political Systems and she was my link.  I had wanted to visit her yet obligation and distance never allowed it.  Time passed and for whatever reason addresses and contacts were lost.  Months turned to years, I became married yet I never forgot her.  I remembered her writing to me about Polish history.  She was an artist and would send her letters to me covered in drawings and animations.  I remember dreaming of finding her a job with Disney.  I think she even sent me a Polish history book.  The memory just came back to me.  Address books surrendered to palm pilots and iphones.  Virtual address books would come and go in the blink of a digital eye as silicon consumed the past and left nothing but wire and discarded plastic in its wake.

The other day I happened to look at my Facebook account and noticed a message had arrived from a foreign sounding name.  I didn't give it a lot of thought thinking it must have been SPAM.  For some reason the name kept resonating with me.  Eventually I read the note and instantly knew from whom it was.  Twenty-four years had passed yet a voice from my past called out my name.  Apparently there was a special person in my life that remembered me.  A person with whom I had stayed with deeply inside over the years. 

After a twenty-four year rest a friendship has been renewed and despite marriages, children and unanticipated careers has proved to be as vibrant as the last letter stamped and mailed so long ago.  It was a letter that traveled to a different world and different time.  It crossed oceans and traversed a cold war and communist overseers.  Suddenly the endless wait for a response was replaced by the clicking of keys and the nearly instant transmission of thought and feeling.

I am still discovering why I look back at the past and constantly analyze the maze of doors that is the story of my life.  In some way there is something beautiful about crossing the threshold of so many rooms and then suddenly and most unexpectedly a door creaks open and you discover you are nearly back to where you began. You can never truly start over.  Choices are made and contemplated decisions become final.  Our bodies change with time as do our minds.  Still in her own way, my dear friend Malgosia has reopened a chapter in the book of my life.  She has also given me the confidence to go forward knowing that not so far away a kindred spirit lives who once arose near my beginning and will now walk with me toward my end.