Lost

My favourite light sock of grey with paper-punch sized yellow polka dots. Its mate now lies at the bottom of the winter pants drawer, perfect as the other one was, but useless. Somewhere between our last stop in Mexico and the building D dryer two days ago, it might be lying like Anderson's little toy soldier, waiting for the next sweep of misfortune to carry it to new adventure.

I will miss it--why couldn't it have been one of the others? "They took the wrong one!"

It is of course faintly ridiculous that I have been mourning so insistently the loss of a beloved sock. After all, it is only what it is and the sock drawer teems with alternatives, some nearly as treasured. However, it is rare in this world to find an object of use made by strangers that accords with one's aesthetic and pragmatic sensibilities so precisely. In Chinese, whoever designed and put those grey and yellow-dotted darlings into production was really my "zhi yin", someone who "knew and understood my sounding".