The Ever Watchful Eye

It astonishes me how easily our perceptions can outrun our awareness. Or a certain habit sneaks in unaware without our noticing.

A year ago, after the hospital — after the light and the fragile hours that changed my life — I discovered a piece of jewelry had gone missing. It was not replaceable, or mislaid but last on my neck. It was rare mosaic evil eye, fashioned from pearl and fine metals, and gifted long ago.

What I remember most vividly is not the object itself, but the memory tied into it: a daughter placing the charm into her blind mother’s hand. The mother tracing its surface with delicate fingers, then turning toward me and saying, with quiet certainty, that I was protected.

When it vanished, I felt something more than loss. I didn’t voice it — instead, I allowed my irritation to search for its culprits. How swiftly the mind seeks a narrative that absolves itself!

And then — a year later — I opened a purse I have used nearly every day since that hospital visit. Nearly “every day”. I had searched it before, I am certain of that. I remember searching. And yet there it was, resting in a quiet interior pocket as if it had been waiting for me to calm down.

The charm returned with gentle irony.

It has unsettled me, in the best way. How easily we can assign fault to the shadows rather than admit we may have simply erred. And we draft villains to protect ourselves from the small humiliation of human mistake. It is not the grand betrayals that undo us most often, but the ordinary reflex of self-justification.

And still — I hesitate to be superstitious — there have been so many good things lately. The air feels altered. The light more airy. It is difficult not to wonder whether the object was not lost at all, but merely patient.

Perhaps protection is not dramatic. Perhaps sometimes it is quiet sleeping in the lining of a bag, putting up with our accusations, until we are worthy of its company again.