My blue sweater is lost. Not that I lost my blue sweater.  The sweater is lost, as in gone elsewhere, not here, no longer with me.  I refuse to think of our separation as something I created.  This estrangement is not my fault.  After all, I’m still here.  It’s the sweater that’s gone.

My sweater may have been stolen, although probably not.  We met at a discount store by the freeway, the one in the strip with the washateria and the check cashing place.  My missing blue sweater is an over-sized import of some unknown hairy synthetic, with gorilla-arm sleeves, three buttons and two utterly worthless little pockets.  I can’t really imagine anyone being desperate enough to steal it, but hey, it could happen.  After all, I paid money for it, though not all that much.

Maybe my blue sweater was mistaken for trash, tossed out by some well-meaning neat freak, and is now lying at the bottom of a land fill, stubbornly refusing to decompose.  This scenario implies some negligence on my part, though.  It suggests that I may have left my blue sweater thoughtlessly unattended, which I certainly did not.  Or if I did, whoever picked it up should have realized that I had every intention of coming back to get it.  Sooner or later.

Maybe the sweater left of its own accord.  Relocated to Seattle with no forwarding address.  I didn’t mean to be unkind, but looking back on things, I realize I was insensitive to the sweater’s needs.  Much – ok, maybe all – of the time,  I thought only of myself, leaving my sweater on the back seat of my car for days, stuffing it in my backpack beneath the library books, dragging it off to folk music festivals on weekends when it might have preferred to stay home watching the golf channel.  Never once did I think to ask.

Perhaps our separation is only temporary.  Maybe my sweater is taking some time for itself, getting in touch with its feelings, enjoying a rejuvenating respite from our hectic life together.  A few quiet weeks in the Maine woods or maybe at the Cape , and it will be ready to come back and pick up where we left off.

Then again, there’s the possibility of genuine trauma.  As an indentured servant of my wardrobe, the sweater witnessed horrible fashion atrocities.  Suffering from self-protective amnesia, it may have drifted unkempt and homeless through the wretched underbelly of the city to end up  sheltered in a grubby Goodwill store on the near east side.

Or wishing never to be traced, it turned state’s evidence, told all and secured a new identity through a Federal clothing protection program.  It’s probably living out its days in Taos , New Mexico , as a chic hand-woven shawl.

On the other hand, suppose my blue sweater shifted into another dimension, bypassing Seattle , Maine and New Mexico altogether and heading for a parallel universe.  Stuff does that all the time, which is how a green polyester blazer you swear you’ve never seen before can take up residence in your closet.  If this is the case, if my blue sweater ever makes it home, due to the time dilation effect it will be newer than it was when it left, maybe even newer than it was when I bought it.

Still, I’m keeping my eye on those ads on the sides of milk cartons, the ones with the sad pictures and the red headlines.  “Missing.  Medium-blue sweater of unidentifiable hairy fiber, gorilla-arm sleeves, three buttons, two utterly worthless little pockets.  Have you seen me?”