Life is full loss and groping after that which is gone but a person never expects to have to mourn a kitchen knife.
Anybody is ready to lose a diving knife, your craft knife is but a temporary companion and you never even bother developing a relationship with a pocket knife.
But a kitchen knife, that is different.
Over the years you come to know its every curve, relish its weight, bond with its steely character and marvel at its cutting wit.
You come to rely on it being there in the drawer, laid out next to its companions like an innocent sleeping child. You come to love it.
So each time you put it away you find yourself anticipating using it again and in quiet times you imagine your shared future of joyous chopping and carving and slicing.
And then somehow it is gone despite the care you took and that future, that thing that felt so very real before the loss is nothing.
As with most lost things I cannot pinpoint the moment at which I did not know where my knife was. I had used it to harvest the last of the summer rhubarb and remember putting it in the unfinished chicken coop while I took the rhubarb inside.
After that, its movements are a blank.
Up until then the knife had been a constant companion since I received it 13 years ago as a gift from a girl I loved.
We were warned not to give each other knives if we wanted to stay in love, but if you love knives you know to play deaf to this.
There is no better way to get a knife than as a gift.
It is more intimate than a three packs of socks, more personal than a shiny trinket.
Regardless I lost that girl soon after, as humans are prone to do with other humans, even when they know exactly where they are. Obviously there are many types of loss.
The first time I remember being lost myself was in 1981. My mother had let go of my hand at a busy Christchurch mall and two seconds later I was gone among the knees and tan leather shoes of the grown-ups.
As a five-year-old I immediately knew I would never see my family again and would instead be brought-up by dogs. It was only luck that, while practicing my bark, my hand was reunited with my mother's.
Then there was my second day as a student in Palmerston North. Going for a bike ride I became so lost I didn't know even know up from down.
The police were able to take me home on that occasion but I still regard that flat and featureless city with suspicion.
I have been truly lost on a third occasion but that was in Tokyo and mostly the fault of tequila and translation.
Because, like knives and people, words can be lost as well.
Somewhere in the process of taking a Spanish story and turning it into an English one the energy disappears. Change French into English and the love leaks away, separate Italian from its hand gestures and you are left with the mad gibberings of a spoilt child, and in translating German the humanity evaporates so quickly you would swear it is the language of robots.
Which it very well could be.
The only good thing about losing something is the inevitability of finding it again because if there is one comforting thing, it is that nothing is ever truly lost.
There are two ways of reuniting yourself with something you cannot find.
The first way is to turn your house upside down, panic and fret, curse all gods and give up hope of ever living a happy life.
Two hours later you will find your wallet, ring, shoe or whatever it is and invariably it will be in the fridge.
The second way, and you should never do this, is to ask your mother. No matter how long you have been separated from the teet the one who brought you into this world knows the whereabouts of everything you own at any given moment.
And, to prove that you will never be able to do without her, she likes nothing more than being able to tell you where that thing is in a way that makes you wonder if you should start wearing nappies again.
It is quite unpleasant but at least she will never tell you the object will be in the last place you look.
This infuriating piece of advice comes from the same type of person who will ask if the warm weather is "hot enough for you" or tell you "speaking" is a funny last name when you introduce yourself on the phone.
And though violence is always a stupid reaction to any provocation, the first thing I will do when I find my knife is use it to cut these people.
Not enough to kill them of course, but enough so they get the idea that it would be better for everyone if they got lost.
Anybody is ready to lose a diving knife, your craft knife is but a temporary companion and you never even bother developing a relationship with a pocket knife.
But a kitchen knife, that is different.
Over the years you come to know its every curve, relish its weight, bond with its steely character and marvel at its cutting wit.
You come to rely on it being there in the drawer, laid out next to its companions like an innocent sleeping child. You come to love it.
So each time you put it away you find yourself anticipating using it again and in quiet times you imagine your shared future of joyous chopping and carving and slicing.
And then somehow it is gone despite the care you took and that future, that thing that felt so very real before the loss is nothing.
As with most lost things I cannot pinpoint the moment at which I did not know where my knife was. I had used it to harvest the last of the summer rhubarb and remember putting it in the unfinished chicken coop while I took the rhubarb inside.
After that, its movements are a blank.
Up until then the knife had been a constant companion since I received it 13 years ago as a gift from a girl I loved.
We were warned not to give each other knives if we wanted to stay in love, but if you love knives you know to play deaf to this.
There is no better way to get a knife than as a gift.
It is more intimate than a three packs of socks, more personal than a shiny trinket.
Regardless I lost that girl soon after, as humans are prone to do with other humans, even when they know exactly where they are. Obviously there are many types of loss.
The first time I remember being lost myself was in 1981. My mother had let go of my hand at a busy Christchurch mall and two seconds later I was gone among the knees and tan leather shoes of the grown-ups.
As a five-year-old I immediately knew I would never see my family again and would instead be brought-up by dogs. It was only luck that, while practicing my bark, my hand was reunited with my mother's.
Then there was my second day as a student in Palmerston North. Going for a bike ride I became so lost I didn't know even know up from down.
The police were able to take me home on that occasion but I still regard that flat and featureless city with suspicion.
I have been truly lost on a third occasion but that was in Tokyo and mostly the fault of tequila and translation.
Because, like knives and people, words can be lost as well.
Somewhere in the process of taking a Spanish story and turning it into an English one the energy disappears. Change French into English and the love leaks away, separate Italian from its hand gestures and you are left with the mad gibberings of a spoilt child, and in translating German the humanity evaporates so quickly you would swear it is the language of robots.
Which it very well could be.
The only good thing about losing something is the inevitability of finding it again because if there is one comforting thing, it is that nothing is ever truly lost.
There are two ways of reuniting yourself with something you cannot find.
The first way is to turn your house upside down, panic and fret, curse all gods and give up hope of ever living a happy life.
Two hours later you will find your wallet, ring, shoe or whatever it is and invariably it will be in the fridge.
The second way, and you should never do this, is to ask your mother. No matter how long you have been separated from the teet the one who brought you into this world knows the whereabouts of everything you own at any given moment.
And, to prove that you will never be able to do without her, she likes nothing more than being able to tell you where that thing is in a way that makes you wonder if you should start wearing nappies again.
It is quite unpleasant but at least she will never tell you the object will be in the last place you look.
This infuriating piece of advice comes from the same type of person who will ask if the warm weather is "hot enough for you" or tell you "speaking" is a funny last name when you introduce yourself on the phone.
And though violence is always a stupid reaction to any provocation, the first thing I will do when I find my knife is use it to cut these people.
Not enough to kill them of course, but enough so they get the idea that it would be better for everyone if they got lost.
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