Solitaire Observations

I play Solitaire on my iPad when I have time to kill. There is something soothing about just barely touching the cards and seeing them fly to their new address on the screen. At the risk of being too introspective, I'm sharing a couple of things that have occurred to me while playing this silly game.

I usually play the Hard level, and my tablet reminds me that "not all Hard games are winnable". It's an interesting choice to have to make. If I'm playing a Medium game and I lose, then I definitely did something wrong, because they are always winnable. One can replay a game over and over until it's a win. I can learn how to beat the computer. If I paly a Hard game and don't win, I can believe it just couldn't be won. What kind of game would you play?

I've learned in my gazillions of games that sometimes the winning strategy is to not always play everything you can play the first time it's presented to you. Sometimes waiting will actually allow for more possibilities to be uncovered, leading to the win. Good things, the "right" things may be in front of you, available. But the best time to play that card may not be now. What good things are in front of you today? When is the best time to play that card?

The Prodigal Luggage

We returned Friday from a quick Spring Break trip to see my mom in Arizona. My bag had an extended vacation and finally returned home just after midnight last night, so technically, Tuesday. I've never had this happen before. Do we all kind of wonder while watching the bags go around on the carousel if it will be our turn to have lost luggage? This time was my time.

It shocks me to find so many emotions attached to my stuff. It is just stuff, after all. But as the days crawled by and still no word about my bag, I began to inventory in my mind what I had in it. A favorite pair of sandals that were bought on clearance at least 3 years ago. Worth nothing monetarily speaking, but irreplaceable. My whole skin care regimen, worth a ton surprisingly, and a hassle to replace. And since I went 3 days without it, I shall now be wrinkled and blemished forever. Just stuff that I can make jokes about now, but I was actually a little distraught during the time of waiting. That is not who I want to be.

My bag has a story, one that I'll never know. I have bits of information. The gal at the Central Baggage Office at O'Hare told me that it was found in Phoenix; the paper sticker tag from the airline had fallen off (how does that happen?) and that fortunately, since I had a big protected plastic tag of my own attached to it, they contacted every airline until they found the one we had flown on to figure out where it should go. But when the uber driver (really.) knocked on our door just after midnight (really.) and gave us the bag, the plastic tag was not on it. There's just a paper tag attached to the handle that says "Julie Dahlberg, Wildwood, IL" with no other information. Everything seems to be in the bag, just as I packed it, so I believe that the fancy tag is how my bag got back to me, but where's that tag? Why would someone take that? Where, what, who, why??? I just won't know.

I am grateful to have my suitcase returned, unharmed. All is right again, and there are many lessons to be learned. I'm sitting right now with the idea that there's a story, and there always is one. My bag would've had a story even if it had been on the carousel for me. We have stories. We carry them with us and they mark us. All the people we encounter have stories. Some we may get to know, some maybe never. Obviously, I have work to do if a suitcase full of missing belongings can leave me distraught. I want to try to hold loosely the stuff, and be sensitive to the stories, whether they are shared with me or not.