Here’s another beautiful box that
1. I don’t know where it came from.
2. I don’t remember what’s in it.
So I opened it, and man oh man, I don’t know if that was a piece of soap in it or part of a candle, but it had melted and resolidified and it smelled SO GOOD.
On the inside of the lid, were these instructions:
Think of only today
Light a cone of sandalwood incense
Center yourself with deep breathing
Surround yourself with white light
Take any heart and apply it to today’s situation
Trust yourself
I pulled a random heart for you.
It says, “Balance brings healing.”
I have a few wooden boxes I’ve collected over the years. Some of them I remember where and when I got them, or from whom. Others, I can’t remember the source. The box above belonged to Tom’s late paternal grandfather, and Tom’s parents gave it to him.
Another thing I’ll forget over the years is what may be inside the box. Let’s take a look.
On the left, a 100 percent cotton handmade Guatemalan bag. On the right, scented soap.
I’m not sure how long it’s been in there, but it still smells nice.
And what’s in the bag?
I’m not sure which of the visits I’ve made to Yellow Springs, OH is the one when I got these. Sadly, the wonderful little La Llama Place shop is now closed. I really love Yellow Springs.
Here are the six dolls from the bag. Maybe I should be using these to treat my current flare-up of insomnia. Not sure six dolls are enough!
Looking forward to sharing next week’s surprise. =)
Lynne, her sister Liz, and I were avid Yahtzee players. Sometimes we could draw others into this dark art, but even if it were only the three of us, competition was intense.
In later years, this became the go-to game when Debby and her friends Dottie and Connie visited. Once again, competition was fierce.
Along with many other sayings and habits that came to accompany the game was one we called “Assume the Position.” This was derived from what I thought was a Yahtzee box photo of a family watching with excitement as a player was rolling the third time for YAHTZEE (which if you don’t play, means all five dice come up with the same number, so five threes, five sixes, etc.).
So while opposing players might have been thinking, Don’t you dare roll a Yahtzee, you jerk, we would get delighted looks on our faces and hold our hands up with faux excitement.
My current Yahtzee game does not have this picture on it, so I went looking for photos of older versions online.
This is not it. Clearly what’s happening here is a family who’s pretending all is well while coping with explaining the game for the umpteenth time to Grandma. Grandma is probably thinking, I could wipe the floor with your asses at Mah Jongg.
I can barely even see these kids, but I don’t think they have quite the enthusiasm required. Clearly, they’re being forced to play inside on a rainy day instead of getting up to whatever nefarious things they usually do in the wild.
This group comes closest, although I never had this box or played this version of the game, so I’m not sure I ever saw it. Hell, maybe the family I’m remembering was on a Parcheesi box. A group of us used to play that game like it was a death match.
My NON-writing project for the rest of the year is undertaking this behemoth. That box o’ elephants has a few years worth of mementos that need to go in my scrap books. (My scrap books used to be photo albums/scrap books, but I stopped getting printed photos, and boy, a flood and three computer losses later, that was a bad choice.)
Most of the stuff on the desk goes into Moleskines/journals.
There will be purging, organizing, and completing these piles before the end of the year. I enjoy organizing and having the time to do it.
But writing comes first, so back to it. Current national events have frozen me for days. I’m disconnecting for a while to get a character out of limbo.
In the not-so-subconscious preparation to get back to my real desk before doing a huge edit on two manuscripts that won’t happen if I don’t finish the second one, I finished another task.
Dating back to 2016, I’ve bought CDs that have been piled everywhere in stacks, either because I wanted to upload them to my computer music library or because they needed to go into my CD books.
What needed to be uploaded has been, and now they’ve joined the other CDs.
Although some are in sleeves I want to keep them in, so they’ve joined the box of random CD collections (I still have a Frank Sinatra disk missing out of a 4-CD set) and other sleeved music.
This was one of the cool surprises when we moved into Houndstooth Hall: a built-in stereo cabinet that’s connected to speakers in other rooms of the house. We couldn’t believe everything still worked. In winter, if we use the fireplace, we have to keep the door open though, or that cabinet gets a little toasty.
Now what do I do with a sack full of plastic CD jewel cases that aren’t recyclable… Maybe I’ll figure that out by the time I read that book on loan from Timothy J. Lambert or hang my signed Justin Tipton poster. TINY STEPS!
Back in April, I posted about making a coping skills toolbox. So far, I’ve only used it once when I reread a favorite book I’d placed in it.
Today, I took this journal from it. It contains (written versions of) magnetic poetry I began writing in April 1998. But not just that. It also contains poetry from James, Timmy, and Steve that they made from magnetic words I pulled randomly for them. And hilariously, there is this poem (once again, from words pulled randomly) that I noted was written by Timothy and me:
Storm Poetry
My favorite photo
Folds down
In the stiff breeze
You see me
But why speak
With me
Most stare
Squirm–his addition
I’ll bet I laughed like a crazy person when he added his one word.
There’s nothing in the journal after 2004, and for good reason. That’s the year I began blogging (on LiveJournal), so any poems ended up on the blog instead of in the journal. Including, of course, an entire year of magnetic poetry in 2011. One a day. I don’t know how I did it.
Today I pulled some random words from the 50 Something Kit.
What does it MEAN? Does it mean I’m giving anxiety a quick pass, like I don’t need or harbor it anymore?
Or does it mean I have passed my skill at anxiety with flying colors, I am the A+ student of anxiety?
Occasionally on social media the subject of quicksand will come up in the context of generational differences. The joke usually goes along the lines of “I thought there’d be a lot more quicksand when I grew up.” We blame TV of the Boomer generation. Whether it was a Western, a sitcom, or a kids’ show, people were always getting trapped in quicksand with certain death impending unless Lassie came along with Timmy and a rope.
Yet you don’t really hear about a lot of quicksand deaths or near-deaths, and unless they’ve watched old TV shows in syndication, people younger than a certain age get a blank look when they hear the word “quicksand.”
Somewhat related, for some reason, I woke up this morning thinking of a lost artifact of the Boomers: the humble cardboard cigar box. People of a certain age remember craft projects at school or home in which macaroni or seashells or buttons were glued to the cigar box. Then it was all painted–often GOLD!–and presented to a parent at Christmas, Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day, to be placed on dressers to hold whatever things adults are supposed to keep in boxes on dressers.
When I thought about it, my concern wasn’t that kids don’t do this anymore because 1. all that glue can’t be healthy, 2. that gold paint is the devil to wash off your hands, and 3. OUR PARENTS DIDN’T REALLY WANT THOSE HIDEOUS BOXES.
Nope, my concern was: Why did every household have cardboard cigar boxes in the first place? Why were schools able to produce hundreds of them? WHO WAS SMOKING ALL THOSE CIGARS? I think I saw my own father smoke a cigar like three times over the course of my life. Why did we have cigar boxes in our house? Was it the dog? Who was buying cigars for Dopey when I was being told we couldn’t afford a new Barbie doll?
Now cigar boxes are wooden and you can still find people using empty ones for crafting. But in a Google image search, I couldn’t find a single gold-painted, macaroni-bearing contemporary cigar box.
Is there anyone who doesn’t carry something–not necessarily the big ones like addiction or diagnosed conditions–but any issue or habit that we work to overcome or that we struggle against? Self-criticism, anger, guilt. Nail biting. Stress eating.
My own lifelong struggle is with anxiety. It doesn’t cripple me. I’ve never had to be on medication for it. It’s very often visible to no one but me. But it robs me of sleep and peace of mind. It can leave me irritable and impatient. It definitely impacts my health.
When the world is sleeping and I can’t is the worst time for me. I made a list of reasons why I don’t want be consumed by anxiety and taped it inside the lid of a box. Then I filled the box with things that may help. A small coloring book and colored pencils. A journal that has my magnetic poetry recorded in it–I can always pull out a box of magnetic words and create new poems.
Two Super Heroes to keep me company that I can imagine conversations with or between. (Never forget wee Becky’s dolls were her first storytelling teachers.) Vintage plastic cars because playing with them takes me back to a great childhood memory. Bubbles because I’m a grownup now and can blow bubbles in the house at night if I want to.
Then some comfort movies and books. Trying to read a new book will keep me awake because I want to know what happens next. But re-reading a favorite book means when I get sleepy, I can put it down. Same with favorite movies. Sleepy? Pause and continue watching the next time I can’t sleep. I don’t have to race to any endings–I know it all works out.
I thought the idea might help you, too. Let me know!
In the 1980s, I was obsessed with Stewart Copeland’s soundtrack to the movie Rumble Fish. Maybe I was also a little obsessed with the movie Rumble Fish. I don’t remember if I read S.E. Hinton’s novel Rumble Fish. I think I should probably just get her books into my Nook e-reader and read or reread them all. I wonder if I will still enjoy them as I did when I was young? P.S. I want to write Rumble Fish one more time.
Sometimes when I look at Superman in his display case, I start hearing “Don’t Box Me In” in my head. It has such a great 80s sound.
I figured he might like a visit from these 80s Ladies: Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett, and Debbie Harry.
You walk
I’ll run
And follow right behind you
You call
I’ll come
And I won’t remember where I come from
Over there
At the end of the bar
This fish keeps swimming
In a jar
I feel
A tug on the line
Which end
Will I be on this time?
Don’t box me in
Don’t box me in
One day
I’ll show them
Just what I’m made of
There’ll be
A time
When I won’t remember what I was afraid of
And I’ll be swimming
In the sea
No banging on this glass
For me
My eyes saw red
When my life turned blue
So I’m leaving
Everything that’s true
And I’ll jump into
A brand new skin
And then you won’t be able
To box me in
Don’t box me in
Don’t box me in
Don’t box me in
Let go!
There’s a few places ’round
That I’ve never been
There’s an ocean out there
That I gotta swim
There’s a river that flows
Right past my door
I wonder…
I wonder…
What?!
And if sometimes
I can’t seem to talk
You’ll know this blackboard lacks
A piece of chalk
Don’t box me in
I told you not to
Don’t box me in
Don’t box me in
Let go!
While I’m at it, I probably should spring for the soundtrack. Also, word: Never try to box me in. I have unpredictable and unpleasant (for you) reactions.
