Though It May Look Like Disaster

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop


The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.



I didn't write last night. (I posted twice the day before, that has to count for something.)

I didn't post because when I arrived at the boardwalk I found that the wind had blown down my tent and destroyed all my artwork. We spent the next two and a half hours cleaning up the mess and packing the remains. By then the sun was shining and it felt like it was 100 degrees.

I decided to leave early and go home (we were supposed to stay until Monday). When I got close to the bridge into Philly, I called C. who told me that HIS car keys were in MY car. He hadn't called earlier because he "fell asleep".

Five minutes later, as I was stopped at the toll booth, I was rear-ended by the car behind me.


My head started to hurt fairly soon after that and I knew I was going to be sore today, but I just wanted to get home and go to bed. About a mile from my house my car started making a strange noise.

My right rear tire had gone flat.

When I got to my office, I was determined to blog anyway but I found that I'd left half a glass of ice tea on my desk. While I was away the cat knocked it over and it spilled all over the desk and onto the keyboard which was now not working correctly since it was sitting in about half an inch of water.

At that point I just went to bed.


I went to the ER today as I woke up this morning with a 9.5 headache and was unable to turn my head to the left more than about 5 degrees. I also had pain down my left arm. No breaks, but I could have told the Doc that. He told me to go home, take OTC pain meds and go see my family physician if the pain in my arm didn't go away.

Clearly, I have some sort of target on my car. The universe hates me. I pushed people into ovens in my past life. There has to be SOME REASON for all this crap. I know that nothing in life is "deserved". Good people don't have good things happen to them. Life isn't fair, etc. But honestly, I'm a statistical anomaly and I'm getting really tired of it.