Mystery

I can pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with mystery.

It was entirely unrelated to theatre or performance or mind reading. It wasn’t a movie or a book or a play. It was much simpler than that.

It was a game.

A favorite childhood game in my family was “Hide The Thimble” where you take a thimble and, well, hide it. The object of the game was to keep the bright, shiny thimble in plain sight so that you could easily see it from anywhere in the room.

We had dozens of favorite hiding spots. The thimble easily balanced on a picture frame or fit over a lamp switch. You could sit it between piano keys or rest it high atop a ceiling fan. The possibilities were endless.

We mostly played “Hide The Thimble” when visiting family, so we were full of anticipation upon arrival. We’d take turns hiding and finding the thimble, without a care in the world. There were no iPhones or internet back then so we were content to play as long as our relatives would put up with us.

On one occasion, someone (I can’t quite remember who) hid the thimble while the rest of us waited in the other room. Then the seeker (I wish I could remember) led the rest of us into the target area.

Minutes passed and the thimble had yet to be found. We were all stumped and excitedly waited for the “seeker” to discover its whereabouts.

Another ten minutes had passed and still no thimble.

“Show us!” we begged, but the person who hid it had forgotten where it was.

We were a patient family. It was in our blood. We would play chess and tennis and board games for hours. We would design extravagant scavenger hunts for each other and organize massive rounds of Capture The Flag.

What I’m trying to say is that we would have looked for that thimble for hours. We would have stayed in that room and kept looking if my dad hadn’t told us it was time to head home.

“But we haven’t found the thimble yet!” someone said.

“Well, we’ll have to find it next time then,” my dad said, as we followed him to the driveway.

There was no next time.

Time passed, and so did relatives. Things changed and we grew older. 

The thimble was never found.

I think about that thimble often. I wonder where it was hidden and what might have happened to it.

Did it fall off a light switch and roll under a shelf? Was it resting just above our eyeline and we had forgotten to look up? Did the future owners renovate that room and discover a small, shiny object underneath the floorboards?

Or maybe it was never meant to be found?

Over the years I’ve learned to be okay with not knowing. I like it that way.