My talisman: Not this figurine of a hobbit actually, but the song posted below. One of Tom Bombadil's songs in The Fellowship of the Ring; a finding song. At least that's how Tom uses it, calling for the hobbits' ponies lost on the barrow-downs. And that's how I often use it myself, and have done for the last thirty-five years. If I misplace something (or myself), I tend to sing these four lines, over and over again. Often, I'll end up discovering what I was hunting, or I'll find something else just as useful, just as worthwhile.
Walking, paddling, or driving, I use Tom's song to express myself, adjusting the way I sing or chant the lines according to spirit and mood: sheer exuberance, foursquare contentment, whirling confusion, grinding frustration, stinging bitterness, the headlock and hollow-chestedness of melancholia, or the cold bite of grief. Given the right delivery, these four lines sound as a hearty call-to-arms, a wily wizard's spell, a lovesick ballad or a doleful, doom-laden dirge. Of course, I'm usually off-key and not being quite true to the book's original usage, but I don't think old J.R.R. would mind too much.
Listen, and then sing for yourself, whatever your mood:
Up, down, near or far, here, there, or yonder?
Sharp-ears, Wise-nose, Swish-tail and Bumpkin,
White-socks my little lad, and old Fatty Lumpkin.
P.S. I first memorized these lines because my friend Ron Johnson already had them to hand in his head. That wouldn't do, you know? So, I started my own singing, and glad I am.
