HOME | DD

Description
On the dusty top of a beat-down brown bookcase, lies a clean oak box of adventures.  It lies amidst a varying collection of oddities; a modern green-glass Coke bottle, a plastic baby doll hand, a rose made of palm leaves, an oil burner, a painted ceramic cupcake, an iron bellflower, a touch lamp that doesn’t light.  The surface gleams a rich red and gold, though most might call it brown.  The box had been a Christmas present from who knows how many years back, meant for jewelry, destined for things much more precious.  For inside this smooth, nondescript box lays a trove of objects such as the world has never cherished before.

Upon opening a traveler is greeted by curious assortment.  In the four compartments of the shelf resides a collection to rival that of Alexandria in value.   First compartment, top left:  A paper chiyogami kimono pin from Japan, a five Yen coin secured on the front by a bamboo twig for prosperity and longevity.   It was a gift from a friend whose father took a trip there.  A carved elephant of red goldstone makes his home on top: a remnant of a past vacation, stolen from a cheap gem mine gift shop.   It symbolizes the influence of bad friends and worse decisions.   Second compartment, top right:  part of an animal’s jawbone, teeth and everything, found in the woods on a camping trip.  Next to it, the underside of a small skull, broken off at the base and covered in grey dirt.  Little teeth cover the bottom of the compartment; animal teeth, found next to the jawbone.  Reminders of death, a casual fascination with the Other Side.  Third compartment, bottom left: a white Girl Scout membership star, still on its piece of cardstock.  The Scouts were quit before the pin was ever freed.  Baby teeth litter the bottom, found in a small bag on a father’s dresser the year Santa Clause died, taking the Tooth Fairy down with him.  A blue robin’s egg.  After so many years, just the azure of the sky intact, flaked.  Back when a grandmother was a grandmother, not an old woman.  Last compartment, bottom right:  twenty-one Euros and fifteen Euro cents.  One English Penny.  Heaviest, they still influence life, memories, and actions today.

Dear traveler, remove the shelf, for this is where the memories live.  A soft velvet interior protects in its dark cradle a myriad of delicate bits and pieces.  Top:  photos.  Previous best friends forevers, two out of date photos of a toddler, one of a mother and a baby daughter asleep and in harmony.  The last time.  Dig deeper and brochures surface.  Some are for places nearby; Hard Rock Café, a playbill for Joseph at the Hippodrome.  But others, others are much more exotic.  Hard Rock in Paris, next to the infamous red light district.  Admission to Firenze Mvsei to see Machiavelli, to see Leonardo.  The Lord of the Rings, seen on Drury Lane, London.  A map of Hampton Court, accidentally grabbed hurriedly auf Deutsch.  Heart tugging memories of better places and better times, a reminder of things that will happen again.  The last barrier is a collection of tickets.  French subway passes, a miniature map of Paris.  Admit one:  Hampton Court, Tower of London, July 2007.  History that brought tears, history that was lived again.  Movie tickets and whale watching, baseball games and Biltmore, concerts and musicals, all there, safe, in the dark.  That is the last of the paper.

Dig deeper, as far as the velvet reaches.  Nestled on the bottom is a glass jar of Sable d’Omaha Beach.  Saint Laurent Sur Mer.  Such a quiet, peaceful place, that where so many lives were lost.  Two more jawbones, complete this time.  Found next to a dead tree.  The canines come out.  Twisted glass tubes contort the light, speckling the brown velvet and manipulating the eye.  They are broken, made over a gas flame in eighth grade.  Broken glass.  Sharp.

Whatever is read, wherever is tread, place everything back in the order it was found.  Life needs an order, and that is what this curious box contains.  Glass, paper, wood and velvet shelf:  this is how it goes.  Set the box carefully in the square left in the dust on the active bookcase.  Clay rose on top, enameled Chinese matchbox next to that.  There.  Everything is in its place; everything is as it should be.  Open the box again only to add to the adventures and relive them, for a collection is always growing.  There are always new memories to be made.

Description
On the dusty top of a beat-down brown bookcase, lies a clean oak box of adventures.  It lies amidst a varying collection of oddities; a modern green-glass Coke bottle, a plastic baby doll hand, a rose made of palm leaves, an oil burner, a painted ceramic cupcake, an iron bellflower, a touch lamp that doesn’t light.  The surface gleams a rich red and gold, though most might call it brown.  The box had been a Christmas present from who knows how many years back, meant for jewelry, destined for things much more precious.  For inside this smooth, nondescript box lays a trove of objects such as the world has never cherished before.

Upon opening a traveler is greeted by curious assortment.  In the four compartments of the shelf resides a collection to rival that of Alexandria in value.   First compartment, top left:  A paper chiyogami kimono pin from Japan, a five Yen coin secured on the front by a bamboo twig for prosperity and longevity.   It was a gift from a friend whose father took a trip there.  A carved elephant of red goldstone makes his home on top: a remnant of a past vacation, stolen from a cheap gem mine gift shop.   It symbolizes the influence of bad friends and worse decisions.   Second compartment, top right:  part of an animal’s jawbone, teeth and everything, found in the woods on a camping trip.  Next to it, the underside of a small skull, broken off at the base and covered in grey dirt.  Little teeth cover the bottom of the compartment; animal teeth, found next to the jawbone.  Reminders of death, a casual fascination with the Other Side.  Third compartment, bottom left: a white Girl Scout membership star, still on its piece of cardstock.  The Scouts were quit before the pin was ever freed.  Baby teeth litter the bottom, found in a small bag on a father’s dresser the year Santa Clause died, taking the Tooth Fairy down with him.  A blue robin’s egg.  After so many years, just the azure of the sky intact, flaked.  Back when a grandmother was a grandmother, not an old woman.  Last compartment, bottom right:  twenty-one Euros and fifteen Euro cents.  One English Penny.  Heaviest, they still influence life, memories, and actions today.

Dear traveler, remove the shelf, for this is where the memories live.  A soft velvet interior protects in its dark cradle a myriad of delicate bits and pieces.  Top:  photos.  Previous best friends forevers, two out of date photos of a toddler, one of a mother and a baby daughter asleep and in harmony.  The last time.  Dig deeper and brochures surface.  Some are for places nearby; Hard Rock Café, a playbill for Joseph at the Hippodrome.  But others, others are much more exotic.  Hard Rock in Paris, next to the infamous red light district.  Admission to Firenze Mvsei to see Machiavelli, to see Leonardo.  The Lord of the Rings, seen on Drury Lane, London.  A map of Hampton Court, accidentally grabbed hurriedly auf Deutsch.  Heart tugging memories of better places and better times, a reminder of things that will happen again.  The last barrier is a collection of tickets.  French subway passes, a miniature map of Paris.  Admit one:  Hampton Court, Tower of London, July 2007.  History that brought tears, history that was lived again.  Movie tickets and whale watching, baseball games and Biltmore, concerts and musicals, all there, safe, in the dark.  That is the last of the paper.

Dig deeper, as far as the velvet reaches.  Nestled on the bottom is a glass jar of Sable d’Omaha Beach.  Saint Laurent Sur Mer.  Such a quiet, peaceful place, that where so many lives were lost.  Two more jawbones, complete this time.  Found next to a dead tree.  The canines come out.  Twisted glass tubes contort the light, speckling the brown velvet and manipulating the eye.  They are broken, made over a gas flame in eighth grade.  Broken glass.  Sharp.

Whatever is read, wherever is tread, place everything back in the order it was found.  Life needs an order, and that is what this curious box contains.  Glass, paper, wood and velvet shelf:  this is how it goes.  Set the box carefully in the square left in the dust on the active bookcase.  Clay rose on top, enameled Chinese matchbox next to that.  There.  Everything is in its place; everything is as it should be.  Open the box again only to add to the adventures and relive them, for a collection is always growing.  There are always new memories to be made.