Lost and Found

A couple of years ago, in a Peruvian marketplace, a saleswoman gifted me, along with my change, a small red and black seed to keep in my wallet. She assured me that by keeping it there, it would bring me luck in love and money. I did as I was told and continued to do so, despite not winning the lottery and definitely not being the poster child for "lucky in love."
As I packed for my sabbatical, the little red and black seed made the move from trendy Chicago wallet to floral Mexican coinpurse. But, about a month ago, in a cafe in Coatepec, I oh-so-gracefully tipped my purse and dumped all the contents of it onto the floor, including, I soon found out, the good luck charm. As many people rushed to help me recover my belongings (chivalry, by the way, is definitely not dead in Mexico), all I could think about was locating, on the patterned tile floor, the tiny South American seed. Too embarrassed to get down on my hands and knees and admit what I was looking for, I begrudgingly gave up the search, in the moment resigning myself to poverty and lonliness. For the next couple of days, each time I went to pay for something, I felt the absence of litle black and red.
As time passed, though, and my luck in love and money seemed to stay pretty much the same as always, I thought less and less about my Peruvian seed, until eventually, I forgot about it entirely. Until today, that is.
On a hike through the steamy Lancondon Jungle, Ulises, our guide, stopped to point out a special tree, the ormosia, which just happens to produce a certain red and black seed. Looking down, I saw that the ground was carpeted with them, only these were bigger and brighter than the one that I had been carrying around for so long. All that luck right there for the taking! I chose a nice, big, fat, shiny one and dropped it right in my purse.
I have had trouble believing it for a long time, but maybe it really is true that you have to lose something and let it go in order for it to come back to you, this time even bigger and better.