A Real Find

On the flight back, I settled in my aisle seat with an empty one next to it. Tell me the airlines are not hurting. I tried to read, but being too tired to, I put on music and watched the sun set on the Pacific. Looking around the plane at other empty seats, I thought that it was curious that they announced it would be a full fight. I guess that is American optimism for you. Then, my eye caught a glimmer down at my feet, I looked next to where the seats are anchored to the floor, and saw what I thought was a diamond. I calmly reached down to see if I could pick it up. At the same time I was already imagining selling it and dividing the proceeds in my head. Perhaps dividing it between my sister and my partner. The mind was on a trip, fantasizing, and it never involved turning it in. It was wedged pretty good in between the rug and where the seat anchor was, in a pile of dirt and dust. Like a carnival game I would try to pick it up and I would push it further away as my fingers where too big to tweezer it up. So I reached into my bag, and found my little keys to a luggage lock. I used it like a doll spoon to reach under it and pull it out of its hiding place. I was feeling very lucky which was a great distraction from the sadness of leaving my sister and nephew. I continued the mental calculation of size and potential worth as I brought it close to my eye. It was looking kind of dull for a diamond, so I placed in my hand in the sunlight streaming in the window all while maintaining my hope. Then as easily as I found it, it dropped behind the seat next to me. Clink! Lifting it up I peered under and saw nothing. I said to myself, why didn’t you put it in your pocket? Stupid! So not to look like a total idiot, I ordered a glass of wine,already spending the dream figuring I would find it under the seat on the floor after the folks behind me disembarked later.
I was drinking, and thinking, and waiting and waiting. I would vacillate between "spending the money", and cursing myself for dropping it. I even pondered the idea, that I should let it go, as with my luck it will probably turn out worthless. But you never know. Jeez, shut up brain and just relax. Looking between the seats to see behind my seat if those people caught my foolish move and heard the clink I heard. No, they were oblivious and in love…a nice older Hispanic couple. Good. Feeling slightly dumb, but still determined to get my jewel, I thought back to a time when I did find one, damaged on a cabin floor I was vacuuming at 19 yrs old. The clink that time made me empty the bag on the street digging through it until I found it. It was damaged either by the vacuum or the setting it fell out of. So much for tough diamonds. That one I ended up getting re-cut, and selling to finance my first apt in my city, when I moved here broke. So, back to the plane, we land smoothly and the folks get off behind me and I am trying to calculate how can I find it and not look like a terrorist planting a bomb. I jiggle the seat where the seat divides, using my plane ticket. Not there. Then following down where it was most likely to fall, and it was quietly resting in the same place on the opposite seat anchor next to the window. I quickly lifted the banding on the carpet and grabbing it, and putting it smartly in my pocket. I casually walked out with the passengers from the rear of the plane towards staring and curious, but polite stewards saying good-night. I got it! I arrived home from the airport to survey my new treasure. I put in down, got a loupe and quickly found that I had picked up a rhinestone. My dreams quickly vanished as fast as they just started an hour ago.

Now haven’t you had a similar experience that you build up in your mind as unsurmountable? And a year later when recalling the event, just seems trivial as a rhinestone? Approach life with some fore thought. Advance your mind to a time ahead when what you think at the present moment seems to big too handle. You will be surprised how easy you are able to move past hard times. I used this back when I was in the hospital with breathing tubes and doctors hovering around me with sour faces, imagining a time when I would travel again. And it came true because the real diamond is inside of us waiting to be found.