Lost Socks

I can’t keep track of all my socks
I’m irresponsible, not because I’m a rockstar
You can call me what you want
I think I’d like to hear you talk

If I set fire to these walls right now (right now)
Would I set foot inside your mind? (Would I?)
And if you say yes, am I allowed back in?

Socks. Dominic Fike

Next to a row of smelly pit toilets, in the dirt of the concert grounds, they got left behind. White, wet, and no longer needed: a pair of worn sport socks. The short, annoying kind that travel down your ankles while you’re wearing them. Then disappear into your shoes, all bunched up around your heels, betraying their intended purpose.

Soaking wet from the water cannons at the EDM stage, these once-essential items now lay discarded. Left behind next to a metal fence somewhere between one stage and the next, they became silent observers to the ebb and flow of the festival.

I wonder what these small and inconspicuous socks must have witnessed while lying there against that metal fence, motionless yet all-seeing. Did they watch the concert crowds pass by? Slowly shuffling by. Stumbling by. Dancing by. Perhaps they felt the ground vibrate with bass-heavy beats, or caught snippets of excited conversations and off-key singing.

Thrown out one night, they still lay there the next day as we walked by. Their presence was almost accusatory, as if to remind us of our careless abundance. Their position against the fence had shifted slightly, but they hadn’t even been deemed important enough to be cleaned up by the night crew. I picture the cleaners coming in when all the fans are gone, off to after-parties or drunk in their hotel rooms, sleeping it off. I imagine them picking up garbage, cleaning the pit toilets (one can only hope), collecting other items left behind. Yet the wet white socks remained where we left them.

As time passed, they were no longer wet, but dried stiff from all the water and dirt they had collected on these concert grounds. They became a constant in the ever-changing festival landscape, a small monument to forgotten necessities.

And then, on the third day, as we made our way past their usual spot, they were gone. Simply disappeared. I found myself wondering about their fate: Were they cleaned up and thrown away? Picked up and reworn by someone in desperate need? Swept up and put with all the other garbage, destined to rot away in some giant garbage container?

If socks could talk, I would love to have had a chat with them. “Hey, how have you been? Sorry we left you behind, but we hope you understand.” I would tell them about the pang of guilt I felt every time I walked by, seeing them there. And about leaving them behind again and again.

The things we leave behind. Socks. Personal items. People. Ever since moving to Australia for the first time in 2019, I have taken great pride and comfort in the fact that my entire belongings fit into two large suitcases. Well, three by now probably. Or four. Actually, make that five. And a vacuum cleaner – my most recent purchase. It is the most amazing tool I have ever owned, worth every cent but that’s a story for another day (because surely you would want to read about a vacuum cleaner since you just read a whole paragraph about socks!).

For some reason, not having many items with me liberates me. Almost like a fresh start, a clean slate, a new beginning. Able to pack up and leave at any time and move on. Not that I am planning to go anywhere anytime soon. I am a bit tired of starting over and reinventing myself. I am planning to stay put for a while. Well, since I quit my job in Canada I don’t really have any other options right now, anyway. I am here for good, committed and ready to go. 

And I am enjoying the fact that I know my way around a bit more now, understand the systems at my school a bit better, and even manage to find the document I am looking for in the most intricate filing system any school has ever seen most of the time. Not always, but more and more often. The other day, I came across a school document by accident that I had been looking for years ago. Small success. 

Yet I do miss some of the things that didn’t fit in my suitcase and that got left behind: the wooden charcuterie board I crafted with my son and his girlfriend while spending time back home in Toronto. My Ikea shelf full of books. Driving my own car. The long summer nights. People. Friends. My family. The things I left behind to follow my dream. 

July 2019. Toronto Pearson Airport. Security check. The part after you checked in your overweight luggage. Paid an extra $100 because your suitcase was too heavy with things you thought you could not leave behind. The part where you hug your children goodbye one last time, in your stomach a crazy mix of fear, guilt, sadness, and excitement. Where you walk along the black line barriers like a maze: left right, left, right, straight, bag through the x-ray machine, yourself through the gigantic swiveling scanner gate. One eye on your belongings, the other on your family slowly disappearing and getting out of sight. One last glance, one last look, and then eyes forward and off you go.

I have that funny feeling every time I leave Canada to return to Australia. That funny mix of uncertainty and absolute certainty. It does get weaker with every time I leave my family behind. I now manage to see myself as an important expat that goes off to do her job abroad. Until I come back for a visit in a few months time. It is a bit like two parallel lives I am living and I feel lucky to have two worlds I call home with people that I love in it. Even if it means that sometimes I have to leave them behind. Not discarded like a pair of old, wet socks, but like carefully washed, dried, folded and tucked away inside of me. Until it’s time get them out and wear them again. Experiencing great things together.

Pull up your socks, I say. Time to get wet again.

“Dreams are fun when they are distant. The imagination loves to play with possibilities when there is no risk of failure.

But when you find yourself on the verge of action, you pause. You can feel the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Thoughts swirl. Maybe this isn’t the right time? Failure is possible now.

In that moment—in that short pause that arises when you stand face to face with your dream—is the entirety of life. What you do in that pause is the crucible that forges you. It is the dividing line between being the type of person who thinks about it or the type of person who goes for it.

When I really think about it, I want that moment to be my legacy. Not that I won or lost. Not that I looked good or looked like a fool. But that when I had something I really wanted to do, I went for it.” (James Clear)