In our house I am the person who finds things. If the kids lose their shoes, they come to me. If Howard misplaces a book he comes to me. Most of the time I can find the missing item in a fairly short span of time. There are times when I can find things that belong to Howard which I’ve only seen once several months ago. It is almost uncanny at times. I don’t know how I do it either. It is probably due to the fact that this is my house and I’ve done most of the organization here. Also the things that are moved get moved by my people and I know where they are likely to put things. Whatever magic alchemy that occurs to allow me to find things, takes place on a subconscious level. I can’t just stand in one place and tell you where the object is. I have to wander around until I suddenly know exactly where to go get it.
This evening Howard began packing his things for our coming California trip. He needed a couple of gym bags that neither of us have seen for several months. This time a little piece of me stood back and watched while the finding portions of my brain went into action. Howard had already searched for the bags. I knew this, but I still started in his office where he had already looked. I knew the bag would not be there, but the process of looking through the office triggered something. I knew that the next place I needed to look was with our luggage in the storage room. Sure enough one of the two bags was there. I went to our room to search our closet for the second bag. It was an unlikely place for it now, but last year it ended up there a lot. The bag was not there. I re-searched the luggage storage which triggered a memory of the second bag being out in the garage near the bikes. Sure enough, there it was.
Watching the process was fascinating. None of it was verbal or logical. I had to see and touch things in order to trigger the necessary memories to direct me where to go. I’ve previously noticed that it is much easier for me to go and get something than for me to describe where it is. This means I tend to jump at the beck and call of my kids who need to find their shoes (which are usually “lost” in plain sight.) I’m trying to make them do more of their own looking, but younger children honestly can not recognize the shape of a shoe if it is half covered by a blanket. The pattern recognition faculties just aren’t sufficiently developed yet.
I think that no matter where I am or what I am doing parts of my brain are cataloging objects and locations against possible future need. This same process will identify anomalies and bring them to my direct attention. I don’t consciously notice shoes scattered on the family room floor. That is normal. But if on of Gleek’s shoes is on the windowsill I notice it enough to wonder why it is there. Then when the kids come to me asking for their shoes, I can tell Gleek exactly where her shoe is, but I’ll have to physically go look for the other ones because I never consciously noted them.
Brains are weird.
Wow! I love how you wrote this! You are so good at explaining things that I do, but could never be so clever at explaining! Does that make any sense? You describe exactly what I do…in a way I couldn’t. I am also a “finder-of-all-things”. I loved how you so clearly described how I work. 🙂
Wow! I love how you wrote this! You are so good at explaining things that I do, but could never be so clever at explaining! Does that make any sense? You describe exactly what I do…in a way I couldn’t. I am also a “finder-of-all-things”. I loved how you so clearly described how I work. 🙂
I told you they remind me a lot of you and. 😀
I told you they remind me a lot of you and. 😀
🙂 I’ll take that as a compliment.
🙂 I’ll take that as a compliment.
Chalain and his mother call it a uterine locating device. Most women seem to have the ability to locate lost things in their own home.
Chalain and his mother call it a uterine locating device. Most women seem to have the ability to locate lost things in their own home.
That term is also in usage at our house. We probably picked it up from Chalain years ago when he lived with us for awhile.
That term is also in usage at our house. We probably picked it up from Chalain years ago when he lived with us for awhile.
finding things
My wife has the same capacity, but approaches it in a very logical fashion. She typically finds something by stopping whatever she is doing and thinking through the possibilities of where it might be, and then looking in one or two places. She often looks in a place that I have just looked and finds my keys, or wallet, or whatnot. I joke that she is a witch, and summons the lost item by her witchy ways. I am a more intuitive finder, and go through much the same process as you do.
finding things
My wife has the same capacity, but approaches it in a very logical fashion. She typically finds something by stopping whatever she is doing and thinking through the possibilities of where it might be, and then looking in one or two places. She often looks in a place that I have just looked and finds my keys, or wallet, or whatnot. I joke that she is a witch, and summons the lost item by her witchy ways. I am a more intuitive finder, and go through much the same process as you do.
Wow, can I hire you on retainer? I am better at finding things than my kids (who think I’m “magic”) but I’m still at a complete loss sometimes as to where to look. If I saw a shoe on the windowsill, I would think, “huh, that’s an odd place for a shoe” and then, hours later, when it came time to go out the door and we were hunting for the shoe, I would only remember that it was somewhere weird. That leaves a million weird places where it could be.
Julie R. 🙂
Wow, can I hire you on retainer? I am better at finding things than my kids (who think I’m “magic”) but I’m still at a complete loss sometimes as to where to look. If I saw a shoe on the windowsill, I would think, “huh, that’s an odd place for a shoe” and then, hours later, when it came time to go out the door and we were hunting for the shoe, I would only remember that it was somewhere weird. That leaves a million weird places where it could be.
Julie R. 🙂
Brains are weird. I’ve been doing this kind of finding for most of my life. I think Moms have an extra ‘finding’ gene or sense or something. I used to find my own Mom’s coffee in the morning when she had set it down and forgotten where she had left it. Now I find things for me, at work, for the kids… and not incidentally, I find things like an out of print book that someone really really would like to have again and a replacment for a charm that was lost 30 years ago.
Brains are weird. I’ve been doing this kind of finding for most of my life. I think Moms have an extra ‘finding’ gene or sense or something. I used to find my own Mom’s coffee in the morning when she had set it down and forgotten where she had left it. Now I find things for me, at work, for the kids… and not incidentally, I find things like an out of print book that someone really really would like to have again and a replacment for a charm that was lost 30 years ago.
I do that too. I think it’s cool that women can find things so well.
It must be the extra x chromosone…don’t you think?
On the other hand, sometimes I need Ross to prime my brain pump. He reminds me where I was or what I was doing or something I might have said to him the other day perhaps and it’s enough to start up a memory that leads me to know where things are or even just remember that yesterday actually happened.
My kids seem to think that Looking for something means you go into a room turn your head right and then left without looking up or down and THEY’VE LOOKED FOR IT! 🙂
I do that too. I think it’s cool that women can find things so well.
It must be the extra x chromosone…don’t you think?
On the other hand, sometimes I need Ross to prime my brain pump. He reminds me where I was or what I was doing or something I might have said to him the other day perhaps and it’s enough to start up a memory that leads me to know where things are or even just remember that yesterday actually happened.
My kids seem to think that Looking for something means you go into a room turn your head right and then left without looking up or down and THEY’VE LOOKED FOR IT! 🙂
I don’t think it’s gender related, because in my family it’s me that finds the things my wife has lost. My daughter has got the finding ability, but my son does not.
I don’t think it’s gender related, because in my family it’s me that finds the things my wife has lost. My daughter has got the finding ability, but my son does not.
I have the opposite ability: the magical ability to lose stuff I just had in my hand, and even more amazing, to retroactively lose the thing I need right now. When I need scissors, all the scissors in the house will magically become lost, until I go buy a new pair, at which point all the other scissors will appear in plain sight.
Brains are weird.
I have the opposite ability: the magical ability to lose stuff I just had in my hand, and even more amazing, to retroactively lose the thing I need right now. When I need scissors, all the scissors in the house will magically become lost, until I go buy a new pair, at which point all the other scissors will appear in plain sight.
Brains are weird.