Editor’s note

Lost and Found

Hola, and welcome to Michael Murray’s Galaxy Brain! 

After the double supernova of Yael Friedman and Bob Bickford piloting the Galaxy Brain space rocket, it’s my turn to take the joystick. These are very big spacesuits to fill, honestly. 

I’m honoured to be on Team Galaxy Brain and to have the opportunity to keep this craft in orbit, a craft that runs on the creativity and goodwill of every contributor and reader, and the magic that Michael inspired in us all. And let’s not forget our amazing and bright North Star, Rachelle Maynard, the guiding light in the whole galaxy.

This issue reaches into the Lost and Found box, where you can’t help but marvel at   the treasures, conflicts, items and connections that surface. The box jumbles the everyday, the bizarre, and the wondrous, each holding a sliver of a life, of an entire universe.

Losing something gives us a moment: a moment to decide whether we’ll fiercely search to get it back, or leave it. Was it time to let it go anyway? And even, is that why I lost it? Priorities change and the grip loosens. 

The lost flip-phone, a tiny, strange brand with a wee tinkly ring, that we found the next morning, after a fresh snowfall. Some wooded area, over a fence…what had you been doing again? We dialed and dialed, and your sensitive ears caught the smallest chime, under the snow, ready to be brushed off and carry on. 

A wistful attachment to nostalgia may change when looking at past times with clear eyes. The “good old days” can be relegated to the Lost and Found box with the unopenable lock, alongside other useless relics. What we’ve lost, or let go of, may reveal as much about ourselves as what we still hold dear.

The worst is losing something and learning that it was gone before you knew to say goodbye: an ability, confidence, a loved one. 

Finding something is different: a gift from the universe, unexpected joy. Someone else’s stuff! Your own stuff! Five bucks in an off-season winter coat pocket! Painting supplies from years ago, not lost exactly, but missing from your life for a time. Rediscovering abandoned pieces of our lives can remind us of our past selves, the skills we developed. 

Bella found a phone in the ravine once, just jumped into icy spring water and came up with a cellphone in her mouth. Days of dry-rice baths and forensic sleuthing revealed a life in pictures, on that phone. Bella found all the best stuff. She collected tennis balls and rocks, and worried over them, loudly. 

Finding something can also be a responsibility, as Bella discovered. We may need to search for the owner, create space for it, worry about it, drop it again. Or hold it closer.

The pillow we lost on a holiday to PEI. It was supposed to be a reminder of home on our two-week trip, a comfort to guarantee sound sleeps, but it was forgotten at a hotel in New Brunswick on Day 1. Two weeks later we returned to collect it. It was the one with the yellow pillowcase in the Linens room, the one that guaranteed sound sleeps back home again.

This brings us to Michael. Did we lose him? yup. But we can still find him, woven into the stars, as we meander through the galaxy. Look for him in the constellations, the dreams, birds, and the contributions here. In the things he said, and wrote, the absolute faith he had in every person. 

Michael was one of the most encouraging people, THE most encouraging person I ever met. He was always ready to say: “you’re great! You’re doing everything right! Do more of that! If anyone ever tells you…just remember that …<repeat from the top>.” He was amazing that way, and told me to remember, always, what he said. I hear his hoarse encouragements from afar still, and I know they’re meant for everyone. We can do this.

So! This is Galaxy Brain, welcome, maybe there’s a story in the box for you.