I lost my camera on my way back from England last November.  It was quite stupid, really.

Broke the rule of ‘don’t have too many satellites around you’, so I lost track of one of them and Voila.

For a time I thought it might show up, so I trawled lost and found sites, called International Airlines, had a local friend make a ‘Don’t mess with me, I’m not a tourist’  phone call, but to no avail.

It is lost.

The worst part, of course, is the tiny memory card inside, for which I would gladly sacrifice my trusty camera, just to have that in my hands.  Those photos for which I struggled to keep the camera still, because I was smiling so large or laughing so loud!

“A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away” said Eudora Welty.  I’m afraid I let about 357 carefully chosen moments run away.

I beat myself up…for a long time…was I losing more than my camera?  Brain cells?

I started to think about my lost images, the joyful moments embedded on that teeny card, but I suppose embedded, also, on my memory.

(It would be nice to have the card, since you can’t see my memory.)

Maybe I’m not going crazy, maybe I simply had too many things to carry.

My daughter’s friend had her cell phone stolen right off the table while they were in a restaurant having dinner last week!  Ok, stuff happens.

Giving in to the fact that my camera will not be returned, I have bought a new one.  It looks different, feels different, and at least for a little while, I can blame the tool and not the technician, for bad shots.

During one conversation with the Lost and Found Department at Heathrow Airport, I was asked, for identification purposes, what size memory card was in the camera.  I didn’t remember.  I had several and forgot which one was in the camera at the time.  She must have thought I was a scammer, trying for ill-gotten goods, even though, it turns out, there wasn’t one Canon G10 in the lot.

So, I lost my camera, but learned 2 very good lessons…

#1, If you have 2 hands, don’t carry 3 things,

and #2, PAY attention to details!  One day someone will ask you the size of your memory (card) and it looks quite ridiculous to say, I forget!

There is no photo on this post in homage to my lost camera.