An Upper East Side Adventure

I had quite the adventure with my black metropolitan museum bag a few weeks ago. Momo had been busking at Carl Schurz Park and I left it on the bench when we went back home, but I didn't realize it until two days later when I was searching for my songwriting notebook in vain. In a state of panic, I had my mom post on NextDoor (the app where people are always asking where their cats went) to see if anyone picked it up. I didn't hear from anyone that night, nor the following morning, so I got up early to run to East river and search for my bag. Not a trace. I even found the park office, but no one had seen the bag. This was the first time I'd lost so many things in a bag- my notebook, Kindle, sunglasses, songwriting pen (very, VERY special), and the bag itself, which was quite high-quality. Praying for a miracle, a miracle came. Walking to get my new prescription glasses the other day, I saw flyers posted all around the Upper East Side for a monthly volunteer cleanup. I was thinking I should write a story about them and I took a picture of their poster near 86th street. I lost my bag on Saturday. They did their cleanup the following Sunday. I posted on NextDoor on Monday. I went looking for my bag on Tuesday. Finally, someone messaged us through NextDoor that UES Mutual Aid, the same organization that had posters all around the neighborhood, had my bag! I thanked the stars. We met Patrick, the head of UES Mutual Aid Network who had kept my bag safe after they found it on Sunday, and I am now going to participate in their monthly cleanup of Carl Schurz tomorrow!