Lost and Found
Monday, March 1st, 2010
Today’s snowboarding trip nearly ended early – and potentially expensively – when I lost my car key … in the snow. I didn’t wear the fleece top I usually do, the one with the little iPod pocket where I always stash my key, so I just put it in my jacket pocket, and failed to zip it up completely. None of this would have been a problem, if I hadn’t chosen today to master turns. I must have fallen half a dozen times before I realized the key was gone.
In a moment of almost Buddha-like clarity that almost never obtains in such circumstances, I did not worry. According to the Dala Lama, “if there is a solution to a problem, there is no need to worry. And if there is no solution, there is no need to worry.” Instead, I quickly assessed the situation and realized that although finding my key in the snow was highly unlikely, the alternative would be finding a phone with reception and calling my loving spouse to bring the spare key to me. I really wasn’t sure if his fury or the time-consuming process of replacing the key would be worse. I decided to, at least, try to find the key.
Of course, this mission would require reinforcements, so I parked myself at the bottom of the slopes where my “big kids” were riding. After locating, and stopping, my eldest son, Quentin, and instructing him to rally his sibs, I headed up the bunny slope where I had been practicing – on foot. The kids had just passed over me on the chairlift up (to ride down, slowly, in search of the missing key), when a woman skied past and asked if I was looking for a key?! She’d just seen one of the instructors pick a key up out of the snow. I headed straight for the ski school.
It took a few minutes to find the right instructor, but he had indeed found my keys, and my Burt’s Bees chapstick.
Considering the key is a symbol of power and wealth that represents openings to knowledge and understanding as well as the much more mundane car door, I’m feeling pretty good. I not only saved my spouse from an unwelcome trip to the mountains during evening rush hour, but also moved just one step closer to my goal. Which? I’m not sure; however, if snow also holds some meaning, I may have found a key to avoiding trouble and hardship.
This is Tiffany & Co.'stack for achieving economic and social rebirth on a global scale. After all, “What better way to symbolize the opening of doors and new potential than with a key?”
