Think Inside the Box


I hoard boxes. All shapes and sizes and colors. Cardboard white banker's boxes, Brightly colored holiday boxes. Shoe boxes. Cardboard boxes that the butcher packs my half hog in after she (he?) has been slaughtered. Nicely frozen, I need to say. And he (she?) was a happy pig. My friend Lynne raised her. Free range. Grass (and the whey from goat milk--she also raises goats) fed. Lynne held her before taking her to the butcher.

But I digress.

Boxes. Even those not really considered a box. Plastic milk bins, wooden beer boxes, flimsy shirt boxes, with nicely folded tissue paper. Rubbermaid bins. Tiny jewelry boxes. Intricately decorated boxes of all sizes with beads or broken pieces of mirror. Carved mahogany boxes with satin lining.



Actually, what I hoard are containers, not just boxes. I love bowls, too. Friends have said that the bowl represents the feminine, the female vagina. The container for the egg and the developing fetus, the full, bloody uterus. (We're creeping slowly back to the pig. Really. He (she?) was happy). I can't think about this--the bloody uterus, that is-- when I'm eating my cheerios.

Why do I love these containers? I think it was because I had very strict potty training. You know, "Libby--put IT in there." I love putting it in there. Putting whatever in there. Putting the chaos in there where you can't see it. Out of sight, out of mind. Organizers want you to do something with IT. Keep, throw away, or give away. No other choices.

But I like a life where there are lots of choices, don't you.

I may want to keep it, but I don't really want to keep it. I do want it to go away, without all of the ITS really going away. It's like having your cake and eating it too. It's magical that way, sort of like  Schroedinger's box. The cat can be both dead and alive. The junk can be both here and gone.

Experiment with this.

Take a bunch of junk--from one of your cherished junk drawers, for example--and spread it out every which way on the table. Live with it for a few minutes. Maybe sit in a chair next to it and read a book, glancing over at it every once in a while.

Now, get your box. Put all of the junk on the table into the box. Put on the lid. (Your box must have a lid. You don't want to be able to see in the box.) Sit in the chair again and continue reading. Glance over at the box now and again with your junk in it. Soon, you will simply be reading, not paying any attention at all to the box, assuming it's a good book, of course.

You might think this is cheating.

Yes. It is.

But why can't we have our cake and eat it, too?

Just buy two cakes. Save one for later.


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