Boxes within Boxes

What started my current train of thought was a little round box of tiny pebbles of ocean-smoothed bottle glass from Hawaii given to me for my last birthday by friends Ken and Linda. This box was contained in another box of beechwood and inlaid mother of pearl, a reproduction of a IV-Vth century Egyptian piece, from the period when Egyptian life moved from Pharaonic to Arabesque. Marked by geometric, sometimes curved patterns, the new style made its way into art forms from building decorations to jewelry--and onto my bathroom windowsill, where it now holds the pedestrian little proxibrushes used to prevent bacteria from doing too much damage to my receding gums.

Right around my birthday, Francine presented me with a small box of rocks, this handmade of paper, with a handpainted lid and beaded handle. It was made and given to Francine to give to me by a woman named Barbara, whom I've never met, but to whom Francine told the story of my cancer, and who was moved. Francine and our friend Lynn were asked to pick some stones for me from Barbara's extensive collection. The largest is a Chinese flourite, a defending stone. Three smaller ones are garnets, to be given to people who have touched one's life. There's a blue topaz, all about calming and healing, and a moonstone, representing the Divine Feminine (Kanzeon again: see January 17).

I started thinking about how old these stones are, and how long it took the ocean to wash that bottle glass smooth on the Hawaii beach, and how interconnected we all are, and everything is throughout space and time, and the beauty of it all. Then I looked around my place and noticed all the other decorative boxes in my possession, some of which came into my family before I was born.

There's a wooden, wood-burned, hand-painted box that holds two decks of pinochle cards. On the bottom it's signed "Sofia Lanius, October 1944." There's a gorgeous silver cigarette box, intricately carved with Mayan decorations, complete with matching (and monogrammed) lighter and ashtray, from my parents' 1945-1947 stay in El Salvador, where I was conceived. There's a black laquered cigarette box brought by my father from Okinawa, where he was doing something mysterious for the U.S. government in the early 50s, sinking deeper into alcoholism, but always thoughtful, with a good eye for craftsmanship and beauty. Cigarettes and playing cards -- the McLenighans were a fun couple, until they weren't.

In my bedroom, two more wooden boxes from the El Salvador days or earlier, both beautifully covered with paper in Art Nouveau style, one holding a couple of decks of cards for bridge, another holding some silver jewelry. A handpainted oval papier mache box from Nepal, given to my mother by one of the attorneys in her office, which now contains seeds from a plant that my upstairs neighbor Michael, may he rest in peace, called "Snow on the Mountain." A handmade box from Kate holds my most frequently used jewelry; finally, two ceramic boxes from Mexico, one inherited from my beloved friend Dorothy Tollifson, who died at the age of 95 holding my hand.

In my living room there's a rectangular wooden game box with a wooden handle, presented to me by my Zimbabwe family on the trip when I first met little Gladys Valjean, then a delightful 4 years old. The box closes with a little strip of leather that slips over a tiny nail. Inside the bottom and the lid are 32 egg-carton like depressions, where 62 seeds are dispersed according to rules I never understood. The object is for one player to move all his seeds to the other side by capturing oppponent seeds--again, according to rules I never mastered but having something to do with leaving three seeds in a cup at any given time. It's a game of strategy, not unlike Go, and Martha (Gladys Valjean's mother) is very good at it.

These days probably the most important box in the house is my box of 28 pill boxes. This, too, is the Buddha, another manifestation of Kanzeon. It is industrial plastic, with seven columns, one for each day of the week, and four rows, two yellow (for morning and noon pills) and two blue (for evening and bedtime). This is hands down the least attractive box in the house, but it's functional and durable, and what can you do. It holds the chemicals that are trying to save my life, and I am grateful, if not aesthetically satisfied.