Skip to main content

Box of Whale

I was laying down on the floor next to my son's bed the other night,willing (okay, mentally begging) him to sleep.  As I lay there, I turned my head distractedly and looked around.  My eyes rested on an old cardboard box that was holding odds and sods in the kids' closet.  On the side of the box, it said: "50 lbs. WHALE MEAT". Reading the label startled me.  The box had come from the village where we had lived for 7 years before moving to the city 3 years ago.  The coastal village had one of the last remaining whaling stations in North America and it was closed down in the early 70s.   The box had contained some old books that we had gotten from some friends who still live there, so I can trace back its origins more or less, but it still stopped me in my tracks.  What struck me was that in a 2012 world where what this box once contained is now widely considered morally off limits to box up and distribute, the box itself was still quietly sitting here for the past 3 years (and elsewhere for many more before that).  It continues to function perfectly well as a holder of things.  It once was a holder of whale and now it has been thrown under a pile of Polly Pockets and holds toys that have missing parts. This box that had a function in a past that is no longer even remotely imaginable by my generation has been sitting in our midst all this time.



I often think of that movie the Red Violin and all the different people who possessed it over time and I keep wondering about all the things that pass through my hands.   Where are they headed next? How ridiculous will they seem to their next owner? How quaint or horrific?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keep telling yourself that.

We talk to ourselves everyday, all day (and night) for the whole of our lives. We started talking to ourselves before we knew we were a self, we forget what we said because we forget everything from before...when we were too young and busy developing our brain to remember those early years. There is still lingering residue of long forgotten conversations I have had with myself as a toddler sitting around in the crevices...sloughing off occasionally into words I tell myself still.   We talk non-stop, and not just with dialogue.  Our goosebumps communicate to us, our tingly feelings, our neurons, our peripheal vision.  They are all submitting data into our self and expecting us to react, respond or all to often, expecting what they are sending us will be ignored. After all that talking, you'd think we'd know what we think about most things, but occasionally we are stumped.  Unless we stop what we are doing and really concentrate sometimes that voice(s) ...
1 comment
Read more

the words fell out

 Despite being an introvert, I do often process big life events (and many many small ones) out loud by verbally hashing out my thoughts with whoever will put up with me. But this morning when I woke up to the big red blotch on the U.S. map...all my /the words fell out.  They fell out unsaid, unformed. Got to work and probably , in another time, would have annoyed my co-workers, dominating the conversation with my verbal extrusions, but not today. I just mutely stared across at them and nodded. My dad came for lunch.  Normally, we relish a good political diatribe, especially when we feel sure of our perspective, but this time, all I could do was munch on fries and marvel at all the unarticulated thoughts that I was not even bothering to retrieve. The silence inside me was noticeable.  Social media was awash with reactions and I just looked away. I couldn't bear to read one word about it. I was not receptive to any reactions,  accusations, reflections,  words...
Post a Comment
Read more

I entered August without you.

 I won't visit you this month.  You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you.   I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.
1 comment
Read more