The Box in the Closet

The box originally held a phonograph. Reinforced with yellowed masking tape, it has followed me through at least seven closets. Surely there are dolls out there that need this finery: blue gingham with tiny rickracked pockets, red-and-white polka dots with lace-trimmed white collars, silk pongee with blue embroidered leaves. They should have a better home than a closet, but how can I make another child see the foot working the iron sewing machine pedal up and down, the hands with the same arthritic crook I see bending my own fingers? How do I give up bits of love, made tangible?

These are some mighty fine drabbles.

"I don't really need you anymore. I'm just keeping you out of habit", I say, staring into empty eye sockets.

t loving Jilli madly

I want a real human skull! Roderick the plastic skull wears a tiara and sits on my desk. Sebastian the Halloween left over that lived on my dashboard fell out of the car and got run over.

The box in the closet

It's in the storage shed now, but it lived in the closet of the house I grew up in through high school and college. The treasures of a young girl. Foolish, silly things. Fan magazines with pictures of people I don't recognize anymore. Why did I have that big thing for Sophia Loren when I was 12? Oh, dear, I once thought Donny Osmond was hot. I saw him at the mall with his kids just last month.

But to throw these things out is to throw out my history. The memories live on, of course, but the items have hidden levels. I remember sliding that picture in with that clipping. I hear myself giggle, I remember the smell of Pennsylvania in summer.

Burn it on my pyre when I'm gone.

I Don't Look Anymore

Every scrap of paper she doodled on, or wrote a few sentences on, every sketch, every story, every poem. I gathered them all in a big box, closed them in, all her dreams and hopes and plans for her life. Worlds died with her, but her thoughts aren't gone; they reside in a box in the back of my closet. Half-told stories, lost characters; if I throw out that box, the last things in her mind will be gone. Maybe when I die, someone will find the box, and wonder who she was. Then they'll finally throw it all away.

green tea

I don't have anything in my closet, I thought. Old dolls, bedding. But that's not true.

There are two boxes. One contains three-fourths of a tea set, the shards of the fourth cup carefully wreathed in cotton against the day of its repair. One contains my wedding kimonos. I visualize a future home where I proudly display my heritage, but today, they are in the closet.

What is it that makes me hide so carefully the last few vestiges of my achingly distant culture? Will your prejudice be less if somehow I manage not to show a glimpse of foreignness?

Tep, please tell me you had no idea such EXCELLENT drabbles would come of this topic...

'Cause otherwise? You're a total genius!

Loving all these drabbles!

Boxed In

There are so many of them, I can’t keep count of them anymore: wooden ones, cardboard ones, papier mache ones, lacquered ones, silver ones, porcelain ones, stained glass ones, wicker ones, fabric-covered ones, ones that have music boxes, ones that get opened frequently, ones that are still taped shut from the move out from California in 1993. So many shapes and sizes, colors and origins. Some of them have jewelry, some old make-up, some have coins in them, one even has my daughter’s baby teeth in it. They multiply with the years, creep out of my closet, box me in.

drabble: the box in the back of the closet

Sorting through the detritus of my grandmother's estate, I find the box with the teddy bears. Both are musty and dusty and dull with cobwebs that have been collecting for decades. Dad's bear is badly worn, missing an eye and an ear, its stubby tail only half attached, legacy of four brothers living in the same bedroom. My bear is still intact, softer and fuzzier, still smiling gently, a memory of comfort during my parents’ split.

I can't bring myself to throw them out, so now the two bears have a new box in the back of a new closet. There won't be a third.

Tep, please tell me you had no idea such EXCELLENT drabbles would come of this topic...

Well, I know the quality of writing all y'all produce in general. Hell, I bet I could make bellybutton lint a topic and the drabbles would kick ass.

And then, I was trying to be organized and put shit away last weekend, which involved throwing the Guest Linens (from SA's visit) in the back of the closet when they came out of the dryer, and a shoebox on the floor of the closet caught my eye. Now, all this particular shoebox held was sandals I had worn in a wedding, but I hadn't realized the box got shoved over to that side of the closet; I thought I had taken all the ill-chosen wedding shoes to Goodwill back in January.

And it just got me thinking along the lines of "What's in the box at the back of YOUR closet?"