Nowrouz

It was a little red ball, not bigger than the tip of my pinky finger, with a metal hook in the top so it could attach to my green wooden Christmas tree from Austria. I’d bought it on a trip I’d made to visit my cousin in 2017—a cousin I hadn’t seen in years. He and his family graciously welcomed me into their home and we enjoyed a few days together. His wife took me in to see Vienna for the day, with the unexpected pleasure of getting to visit Sissi’s real life castle that had now been converted into a museum. On another day, I took public transportation by myself, missing the train connection and calling an Uber with just enough time to check my coat and be ushered to my seat in the Vienna Golden Hall for an exquisite concert by the Philharmonic Orchestra.

The second half of my trip was spent in Salzburg where I’d booked a small room in a quaint guesthouse with long corridors, bright windows, and a delicious continental breakfast each morning. I wandered about the town and did the requisite Sound of Music tour with a guide who couldn’t carry a note and fellow travelers who were equally as shy as I to sing out loud. I took the trolley to the top of Fortress Hohensalzburg where I ordered a pumpkin strudel and sniffled through a miserable cold as I marveled at the splendid view below.

Then there was the day tour. After having done one in Ireland with my best friend several years earlier, I was now a huge fan of doing day tours as, while they were pricey, it was worth it to see gems I would never have explored otherwise. Halfway through the tour, they dropped us off in a tiny town for some shopping. The little shops lining cobbled streets beckoned me inside. I spent most of my time perusing the handcrafted wooden and lace gifts, trying to decide which to get for family and how much money I wanted to spend. I found a wooden man hunched over, wearing a black top hat and holding a carved Christmas decoration. He was intended to be an incense holder and was out of my budget but I couldn’t leave him behind. I left the store without him, but returned moments later to hand over €12.99 for him in his carton box. In the last shop, I found a shelf full of painted cowbells. When I’d asked my mom what I should buy as a memento, she’d said “buy a cowbell!” so I dutifully picked out a red and white one to add to my purchases.

Then there was the Christmas tree. To be honest, I don’t remember now in which shop I bought it, or even how much I paid for it. I don’t know what prompted me to pick up the flat box it lay in, two pieces that interlocked to create an X shape and on whose tree branch corners little ornaments hung. There were cutouts inside each lower branch for more ornaments to decorate the tree, a spinning tree holder, and a yellow star with tiny red ribbon for the top of the tree. Colored balls, miniature snowmen, toy soldiers and angels were tucked into little pockets in the plastic casing surrounding the tree.

That tree became a staple of my mismatched Christmas decorations that included a red bicycle with plastic holly spilling out of the red metal bucket on its seat and the bronze Christmas tree I’d bought on a road trip somewhere on the way to Montana. Each Christmas I set it up, carefully arranging the ornaments to hang just right. The last two years my sister-in-law had delightedly put it together, oohing and aahing over how cute it looked. This year, she was lying motionless in a hospital bed in her mother’s living room, a sheet covering her skeletal body, tracheotomy tube coming out of her neck, and I was setting up the tree alone.

Which perhaps was why I was so upset when, after our Iranian Nowrouz celebration, I checked the tree to find 2 ornaments missing. I’d been in a hurry to clear the coffee table that afternoon so we could pile it with desserts, seeds, and tea and the tree was in the way. I’d taken it and carefully put it on the shelf under the coffee table, tipping it slightly sideways so I could make it fit under the table’s edge, then straightening it again. Later, I’d grabbed wet wipes from under the coffee table to swipe some of the dirty spots on the kitchen floor, and had shoved the packet back under, not realizing that by doing so, I’d tipped the tree on its side. Midway through the evening’s festivities, I’d realized the tree was down so I’d picked it up and carefully put it on my bedroom dresser, something I should probably have done earlier. I found an ornament on the floor behind one of the chairs and put it on the tree.

After everyone left, I checked the tree. When I noticed the two empty hooks, I hurried back to the lounge to check for them. I soon found a small snowman under the radiator, but the last ornament proved hard to find. I laid flat down on the cold tile floor and peered under the large brown sofa chair, coffee table, and blue sofa sections. Other than dust bunnies, nothing else peered back at me. I went back to check the tree to see what was missing and immediately knew—it was the red ball.

I looked on the shelf, carefully taking each item out and inspecting it closely. I did a second floor search, but still nothing. By now I was starting to panic somewhat. I didn’t want to vacuum it up accidentally. I'd had a feeling it wasn’t lost forever, that it would turn up somehow, but now that feeling was fast fading. I’d searched everywhere and no little red ball was to be found.

Eventually, I gave up. Just another thing I’ve lost in life, I muttered to myself. I shouldn’t be surprised by now. I tried to accept my tree would never be whole but each time I passed it on my dresser, the empty hook stood out. It wasn’t a simple thing to replace; I couldn’t drive to my corner store and pick up another part like one could do for a broken light bulb or drinking glass. I would never return to that tiny town in Salzburg; one whose name I couldn’t even remember. If, by some miracle I did, it was very likely they were not selling those trees anymore.

I’d broken things before: the green ceramic turtle whose leg was glued back on after I dropped him, the Korean couple sitting on a log who had lost an ear, and the stumpy brown giraffe who was chipped on its side. I’d lost things too: the fox and egg game on the flight from Mauritius when I was 9, my only winter jacket, a purple compact umbrella. Loss was not new but this time, I didn’t want to resign myself to moving on, knowing I would never find what I’d lost. It wasn’t as if the red ball cost a lot or even made a huge difference in the aesthetic of the tree, yet it symbolized a memory I’d created and now that memory was shattered. Just like the rest of my life.