There are several things that are currently missing in my life, both corporeal and metaphysical. Some are the result of our recent move (we still do not have the screws and bolts to put our bed back together and there's also a tape gun and a lamp that have mysteriously gone into hiding). And some are the result of a general dulling of the senses, and a waning ability on my part to put things in their proper perspective (examples here are harder to peg down). The latest thing to have gone missing (in the former realm) is my wedding ring. It's gone, gone, gone, and for the last couple of days it's been difficult to think about anything else. But let me back up, because the disappearance of my wedding ring has at least a little bit to do with the refinishing of our hardwood floors in our old apartment in DC.

We had decided the floors could use a facelift before the new tenants moved in. (I think I'll just refer to them as K&J because I don't like using the word 'tenant.' It seems kind of cold and impersonal.) Anyway, there were some cracked boards that needed repairing and it made sense to go ahead and have the entire surface redone since the apartment would be empty. So we called in Danny Hardwood Floor Company. Danny Hardwood (which isn't his real name, but I like to think it is) is more than just a floor repair man. He's an artist. We'd seen his work in another apartment in our building a couple of years ago and we had been really impressed because, well, if you'd seen the apartment before the job was done, you would have thought nothing could bring back those dead boards short of magic. And you know, who's to say there wasn't a little bit of the hocus pocus involved?

In a sea of contractors who cut corners and do shoddy work, Danny is refreshingly fastidious. He takes the kind of care with the job that you yourself would take if you had the skill and the time. He spent six days sanding and applying coats of polyurethane to our floors. Other contractors might have tried to do it in two or three to cut time and cost. But Danny knows there's only one way to do it right. He has a zen-like patience when it comes to this stuff. His rates are extremely reasonable, too, given the amount of time and effort he puts into his work. When we saw the finished product on Tuesday, we were again amazed. A neighbor in the building had his floors done at the same time by a different contractor, who spent two days on the job, and there's really no comparison. You'd almost think we had brand new floors. Between this and the new bathroom, the apartment is really the nicest we've ever seen it.

So all this stuff about the floors is a backdrop, but it's important if we're to understand the whole context of the wedding ring disappearance episode of 2007. See, having the floors refinished put us far behind schedule for getting the apartment cleaned and ready for K&J. We had originally intended to do this all over the weekend, but couldn't due to the drying polyurethane. And on top of the main things we needed to do (clean the refrigerator, stove, bathroom, windows) we now had to paint all the baseboards because one side-effect of the floor job was it left a yellow residue on them. So Tuesday afternoon, after the final coat had set from the night before, I drove down to DC and got started. C joined me that evening.

Normally, I don't wear my wedding ring when I'm doing manual labor of any kind. I also don't wear it when I'm working out or swimming. One reason is it's annoying to have on when you're doing these things. But the more important reason is it's liable to slip off, particularly when it gets wet. And wetness is something that is apt to happen when you have your hands in water, or when you're sweating.

On occasion, I find myself with my ring on during these moments when I shouldn't. And usually I mindfully and deliberately put it in a place where I will not lose or forget it. If I'm working out, I double-knot tie it to my shorts drawstring. If I'm swimming, I triple-knot tie it to my swim suit draw string. And if I've got my backpack nearby, I put it in the small inner zipper compartment. You get the picture. It's not something I care to lose and so I'm usually very conscious of . . . not losing it.

But things have been kind of chaotic lately, and my mind hasn't really been right. And so when I found myself with my ring on while sticking my hands in soapy water, cleaning the outsides of windows, and painting. I made note of it, but I never removed it. And at one point, sure enough, right around six o'clock on Tuesday evening, it even slipped right off my finger and made a loud clunk on the fresh hardwoods. C picked it up. This much I remember. Then we both laughed uncomfortably because I had been about to stick my hand outside to clean the window. And wasn't it lucky that it fell off inside instead of falling to the sidewalk below? Lucky, yes. But also not. Because that moment is the last moment I remember seeing the ring. What happened to it after that point has been erased from my memory like writing on a chalkboard. Did C give it to me and did I put it back on my finger? Did she set it on the counter for me to retrieve when I was finished? Why in the hell do I have no recollection of it after that point? These are all really good questions.

The rest of the evening was a blur. We wound up staying at the apartment until about one in the morning painting floorboards. It was raining when we left. We carried out several things, including a few bags of trash, and I deposited those in the back dumpster. We drove back to Baltimore surprisingly wide awake, our heads buzzing with paint fumes and items to complete the next day. Back at home, I unwound by gluing an arm that had come loose on my glasses. It now looks like this. Then I hit the sack around three.

We got up later that morning, had breakfast, and did some odds and ends. C decided to take the day off so we could finish up in DC. As we were walking to the car I was suddenly conscious of a lightness on my left ring finger. I stopped walking as I realized I had no recollection of seeing the ring after the point where it had fallen to the floor the night before. I went back inside and it wasn't in the normal places: beside the bed, by the sink. Panic's righteous fist took hold in my chest. And a litany of self-flagellation and abuse began to stream forth from my lips. I was a nervous ball all the way to DC. I hoped it was there, although something told me it would not be.

And it wasn't.

And it was not in any of our bags or our pants pockets. My only thought now, looking back, is that it fell off while taking out the trash. Or worse, that I actually threw it into the trash inadvertently. I keep replaying things in my mind, wishing I had done something differently. I keep trying to rationalize things and say, 'It's only an object. It can be replaced.' But it's not just an object. And there will not be another one like it, period. And whenever I try to feel good about finishing our move and being through with prepping our apartment, that ring pops into my head. And it's not the fact that it's gone that really gets to me. It's the not knowing where it is. I wouldn't mind so much if it were out of my possession but someplace known. Or even if I knew it no longer existed. That would be so much easier to deal with. For instance, if I was out in the ocean deep sea fishing - which, by the way, I've never done, so this would be a highly unlikely scenario - but still, if I was and it fell off my hand and plopped into the salty darkness, it would be gone, but I would at least know exactly where it was: In the ocean. I would have watched it disappear. And it would even be kind of cool to know that my wedding ring was carrying on at the bottom of the sea, or in the belly of a shark and maybe it would be found a hundred thousand years from now. But it kills me, the not knowing. It kills me that it just slipped away. And for all I know, it fell off right outside my building, or it's sitting in a trash heap somewhere.

My mom lost her wedding ring once. It came off in a file cabinet at work. But she didn't know this. She thought it had fallen in the trash and was gone forever. Than years later it turned up when she was sorting through that same file cabinet. I still kind of hope this will happen for me. I keep expecting I'll turn over something and find it sitting there on a counter, or underneath a piece of clothing. Then there was Julie, who lost her wallet outside of our building and it was returned to her by a considerate neighbor.

But I probably won't be so lucky, and pretty soon I'll be okay with the idea that this inanimate object has gone on to have a life separate from me and C, symbolic of something beyond our marriage. Meaningful in an entirely different way to entirely different people. And since I'm on the subject of inanimate things, our apartment is another thing that will go on to have new lives that are separate from me and C as it becomes populated by new people with their own joys and heartaches, their own loves and disappointments. It'll continue to exist and take on new meanings, and probably become the backdrop of other stories, just as it was before we even entered the picture, as it's been for the last 100 years. And it'll go on existing entirely on its own, refinished floors and all.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Ho_Hum  Chewing  Ring