Little boxes....

I pulled the little ceramic box down from it's hiding place on the shelf. Dust had collected on it's simple and sweetly carved lid. I hesitated for a minute and set it down carefully on the antique sewing table Jason just brought home for me.

I didn't want that table.....the sewing machine it houses is old and broken and will most likely stay that way, but the table itself is actually beautiful. Simple and sturdy..... Still, I didn't want it. It belonged to his beloved Granny who died just a few months ago at the age of 82. It's not that I didn't like her....I loved her. And it's not that I really don't have room for another table. It's just that....and this will make me sound like an asshole...it belonged to someone who just died.

A dead person's things.....Maybe I don't understand the inclination to hold on to something that belonged to someone who no longer walks this earth. I've lost grandparents and other relatives....but no one from my immediate family. Okay, I don't understand. Or maybe, in my own way, I do.....

I glanced at that little box all day, every time I walked by it. It was after midnight when I finally allowed myself to open it. The little booties fit perfectly over the tip of my finger. The tiny cap that would have swallowed her even then...

I didn't know I had the option of burying her. I didn't know that people can and do bury their unborn babies. So much I didn't know.....so much I maybe just didn't want to know.....like it didn't really happen. But it did. And maybe I hold on to the little box so I know I didn't just imagine it all.

Alone Doesn't Feel So Cold...

My sister's last workday was Monday of this week. The office feels empty without her. She has no idea how much I look forward to having her here every summer. Her first summer spent working with me was four years ago....hard to believe. I was pregnant and her main job was to keep me hydrated. She did. But her companionship was what I appreciated most.

Most of the time I work by myself. The boss spends a lot of time outside of the office, which actually allows me to get more work done. But recently I've noticed that I don't like being alone all that much anymore. Whether I like it or not, I'm sort of becoming a people person.

"Just Put on Lucinda, Baby and Dance with Me..."

So it was on the drive in to work this morning that I realized I have failed as a mother. My son kept requesting - no, demanding - that we listen to Pink's "So What." (I actually had to Google that...I didn't know what it was called.) First, I need to explain WHY this piece of musical stupidity was in my possession in the first place. It was part of a mix cd and I had to take all or nothing.

I might be a music snob. No, I KNOW I'm a music snob. I judge people based solely on their taste (or lack thereof) in music....not really. But in true music snob fashion, other self-professed music snobs sort of piss me off. I don't listen to the radio, unless it's NPR and that doesn't count. Most of what I listen to I have found either by word of mouth or on soundtracks to bad indie films. I have a fondness for live music that goes beyond reason, being that I'm probably happiest positioned 15 feet from a live music stage, beer bottle in hand, lost in that moment of sound.

I love music that makes people feel. And I love to have others share with me the bands they love and why they love them. There are a few performers I will drop everything to sit or stand with for a couple of hours....because they make me feel.....something. I discovered my love for live music during a time when I was in a precarious place between numbness and overwhelming emotion. Music brought me out of the former and every once in a while plunged me into the latter, but for the most part it stabilized me.

Now excuse me, but I have to go introduce my son to someone named Lucinda....