My office key is lost. It must have slipped off the new lanyard I picked up yesterday. A lanyard that apparently didn’t fasten properly.

Meanwhile, I have walked up and down hallways and sidewalks and garage corridors, retracing my steps. What a concept — retracing one’s steps. Going back over what was done before. Ultimate inefficiency.

Or is it? Perhaps a mindfulness exercise could consist of just this practice, walking back over what I walked before, looking for what wasn’t seen previously, realizing that instead of being present in the moment of walking, I was actually daydreaming, fretting, letting the scenery pass in a blur.

As it turns out, I did find something. Not my key but a colleague’s identification card. If I found her card, maybe she — or someone else — found my key. And in this sideways, sliding, inefficient way, we will all be rescued somehow.

(This photo from outside Medora, North Dakota, has no relevance to retracing my steps. I’ve just been wanting to use it.)