I lost my hat, and I lost my father. I found my sock, and I found my life partner. The words lost and found describe such vastly different experiences in our lives, from the small daily things to the ones that change our lives forever. Do these small losses prepare us for the big ones? This powerful memoir is rich with insights about grief, human habits, the impact of family of origin, and loss. It is also a beautiful love story and a reminder of how lucky we are if and when we find love.
Kathryn Schulz is a staff writer from the New York Times, and her excellent book is about the role of losing things, finding things, and the power it has in our life. This is one of my favorite books from 2022 and taught me so much about how much I take for granted and what I value, and it had me thinking and rethinking so many things.
"How are suppose to find love? Love is not like a lost object., after all: we can't locate it by retracing our steps, or thoroughly searching our surroundings. But it is not like the solution to a problem; we may think about it for a very long time, we may imagine it is quite literally like a missing person-infact, it quite literally is a missing person-but the search area in which we must look for is essentially unbounded. It could be waiting at the local coffee shop, or three states away, or on staff at a hospital in Senegal, or at a holiday party you're not enthusiastic about attending, forty cold, rainy blocks from home. To make matters worse, in the majority of cases, it was last seen, by you, never."
-Kathryn Schulz
For an overview of her book here's a podcast interview with her on Ten Percent Happier.