FOUND IN: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
32°74‘79° N, 117°16‘47° W
DECEMBER 24, 2004

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This is a true story. It happened almost twenty years ago in San Diego, California. I was walking home from work when I saw an old lady with a cane drop the cat into a trash can on the corner of Robinson Avenue and one of those nameless alleys between the numbered avenues. As soon as the deed was done, the old lady hailed a cab. The driver pulled up to the curb, got out of the car, walked around the back, opened the door for the old lady, helped her into the back seat, took her cane, carefully closed the door, and put the cane in the trunk. The driver didn’t look much younger than the passenger. Perhaps he was angling for a big tip. Or perhaps he was just a gentleman. It’s a dying breed, but back then, you still met one from time to time. He walked around the car again, got into the driver’s seat, and pulled the door shut. He made a U-turn and headed West, in the direction of I5.

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FOUND IN: WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA
26°39‘27.7“N 80°03‘20.0“W
MARCH 19, 2019

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I'm at the Lake Worth Playhouse, watching Alone. It's my favorite movie, and I watch it whenever it is playing at a theater anywhere between Jupiter Island and Key Largo. Alone first came out almost twenty years ago. It gets screened less and less these days, and at ever seedier theaters, but as long as they play it, I will go see it. It's that good. I guess I could try to stream it, but that's not the same as watching it in a theater. Movies are made to be seen in theaters, not on TV screens or phone displays. In a theater, even an old movie looks new.

Alone is about a woman named Lucy. Lucy runs a small convenience store. She is behind the counter before dawn to sell coffee and cigarettes to the commuters on their way to work, and she keeps the store open way past midnight to cash in on the party crowd. Lucy is always tired, but she doesn't have a choice. Her husband has run off with a woman half her age, leaving behind nothing but broken promises and unpaid bills, and her mother is in a costly nursing home. The store is Lucy’s life raft in a sea of bad luck. The store keeps her afloat.

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FOUND IN: PRAGUE
50°04‘31.5“N 14°24‘33.9“E
OCTOBER 5, 2014

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If only for a moment

The word was sebeúcta. In Czech it can mean self-esteem or pride. The most interesting part is that I had neither of these characteristics until the day I successfully spelled that word and won my area Spelling Bee. The year was 1984, and I was a 10-year-old primary school student in what was then Czechoslovakia. The joy I felt that day is remarkable, because the fact of the matter is that I should never have even been born. In the summer of 1973, my mother, like many other Roma women, was subjected to a forced sterilization attempt. No doctor of hers had ever gotten anything right, so perhaps it is no wonder that the sterilization was also botched. She suffered a terrible infection and endured much pain as a result of the procedure, but in the autumn of the following year she gave birth to me. So, who asks for joy in his life when he is lucky even to have breath in his body?

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FOUND IN: WASHINGTON DC
38°53‘21.1“N 77°02‘06.1“W
APRIL 21, 2014

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They had been separated for about three months when he was deployed. She had spent 72 nights in her own bed – gloriously sprawled out, no longer huddled in a ball of silent fury with her back turned to him. Those days were done. And while her nights were not truly restful as the baby monitor heckled her with those glowing dots from her son down the hall, she slept more deeply than she had even before he was born.

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FOUND IN: SEDONA, ARIZONA
34°51‘36.2“N 111°47‘43.8“W
JULY 20, 2014

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It is my birthday, and I am in heaven. My parents have given me my first proper bicycle. It is a racy ten-speed with drop handlebars and skinny tires. Best of all, it is silver, the color of robots, guns, and spaceships. A bike fit for a king. After enduring years of ridicule for riding my grandma's clunky trike, I will now rule the Garden District. I hug my mom, and then I'm out the door and on the bike.

"Take it easy," my dad yells, but I have no time to waste. I am late for school.

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FOUND IN: MUNICH
48°07‘47.2“N 11°32‘59.1“E
OCTOBER 10, 2014

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Du liegst im Dunkel eines ausgedienten Schmuckkästchens. Du bist nicht allein. Neben und unter dir drei Tütchen mit Ahoj-Brause, ein Ghostbusters-Button, eine mit weißen Plastikkügelchen gefüllte Pelikanpatrone, ein Schlüsselanhänger mit grünem Dresdner-Bank-Elefanten, ein paar Pfennigstücke.

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FOUND IN: MUNICH
48°08‘10.2“N 11°32‘55.6“E
September 29, 2014

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I should’ve known when she told me she was a squirrel. I should’ve realized then that I might not ever see her again, but I was too enamored by the moment, by the flush and flurry of heat that radiated between us. I should’ve asked for her number—at the very least, her last name. But I was a novice in the game of finding love in this wild world. In schools and on campuses, I had never needed to rely on the logistics of those most basic of details—the simple question: How, and when, can I see you again? I would’ve asked her eventually, but I never had the chance.

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FOUND IN: BREGENZ, AUSTRIA
47°30‘17.2“N 9°44‘49.9“E
MAY 16, 2015

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Dear Q,

How’s the European sailor’s life treating you? Is it as romantic as you imagined? The photos you sent seem to suggest that it actually is – they're almost difficult to comprehend as real. Is Lake Constance really that color? Are the mountains really that close? At least tell me you have to deal with obnoxious, entitled tourists on the boat. Young men such as ourselves need some rough seas to weather.

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