Boxes

I had to exercise caution when choosing a title for this post. When I told my daughter it was going to be called What's in Your Box? she burst out laughing.


"Mom, you can't call it that!" she chortled.


"Why not?" I asked. 


"Mom! Don't you know what box means?" she snorted.


"Of course I do," I said. "I knew what it meant before you were even born."


Then I added, "Oh, ew," echoing her response whenever I mention sex in a way that suggests I might actually be having some.


"Oh, go ahead, call it that, it would be awesome," she teased.


I collect painted wooden boxes - or, used to, before I gave up searching for the imagined happiness that comes from accumulating things. Things equal clutter. Clutter causes psychic claustrophobia. At least in me.

It's what's in the boxes that gives my son Will yet another reason to stand in the middle of the living room and list reasons why he thinks I'm insane.


"Okay, so look," he said recently to a gathering of assorted family. He opened a beautiful painted box from Russia and began to list the contents.


"Tibet Almond Stick that wipes out furniture scratches 'quick as a wink,' a piece of cartoon from the Wall Street Journal showing a mother at a book signing with the caption, 'Meet the Author's Mother'-- "


"Your grandmother sent me that years ago," I interrupted. "She was acknowledging me as a writer."


"Whatever. Next, we have a jolly Santa mug with a half-burned red candle in it, a compass, a packet of American Author cards, a book of Witty Women quotes, this piece of wood with your initials burned into it - "


"You made me that," I said. 


"In third grade!"


"I like it," I muttered.


"...an acorn, some sort of ivory-looking letter opener with a painted-on reindeer spelled 'r-e-i-n-s-d-y-r' --"


"That happens to be in Norwegian and it's from the North Cape."


"...two golf balls, a Duracell battery, the end of a Phillip's head screw driver, an empty film canister from before there were digital cameras, a Get Well Soon card from Katherine that says, 'Hang in there, Buddy --"


"When you pulverized your elbow snowboarding," I said. But, I giggled. I suddenly remembered I had a photo of Will at about age four, his head wrapped in a bandage after receiving his first stitches. It was a literal head shot - just his head, no body remained of the photograph. It was in a box.


"But, wait! My personal favorite," he announced. "12 mini Cheeky Chimp for Nails emery boards." He lifted his arms, as if demanding an answer from the assembled company, who were bent double, clutching their stomachs.


"Everyone can use an emery board," I said.


"All right, and then we have Box #2," he continued, lifting the lid of a smaller green box from India and presenting it for open inspection.


"Let's see...another acorn, six striped pebbles, a box of matches with my initials on them, a ball marker, a domino and one of those tricky puzzles that unhook."


As he continued his Mom-is-a-whack job performance, I thought about my friend, Linda, who for ten years had postponed going through her deceased husband's things. She had been afraid what she might feel when she opened the box: loss, sadness, the bleak pit of despair. Then, one day, for no particular reason, the time was right. She sifted through some familiar clothes and photographs, and discovered some crayoned drawings celebrating Father's Days and birthdays long gone created by her then little girls.


"I had to laugh when I saw how they drew what they thought he looked like," she smiled. "Here I thought it would be so painful, and it made me happy to remember those times."


I can't remember the significance of the odd acorn or the 12 Cheeky Chimp mini emery boards, but it's fun to open a box and discover random objects - like the silver handcrafted circle bracelet with the initial H I meant to give my niece 13 years ago. It's like finding treasure.


So, what is in your box, Katherine, and I don't mean the one in which my kicking yet-to-born grandchild resides? (Ew.) Anyone?