TREASURE BOXES

Do you have a treasure box? Or maybe more than one?

When I ask my friends this question, boy, do I get a myriad of answers. Some don’t know what I talking about so I go on to explain that it is not a box of gold coins lost by a pirate on the high seas. It is a box of cherished mementos – treasures – that are important enough to you that the box has traveled with you wherever you live.

I have a friend who is extremely creative. She made a cloth-covered box with lace and jewels to keep her treasures in. She laughed when I called it her pirate box. She lives a full, rich life so maybe by now she has more than one box.

I keep my treasures in a plan banker’s box that is almost full. I’ve been adding to my box since high school, and every now and then I go through my box when a memory crosses my mind. I have drawings from grade school (thank you, Mom, for saving them), graduation certificates, a silk kimono from my brother when he was in Viet Nam, and pressed flowers from proms and family funerals. The most coveted treasure is a book of poems and reflections I’ve written over the years – the highs and the lows of my life.

I also have a smaller box of treasures. This one is filled with newspaper clippings, ideas written on the back of used envelopes, pictures from magazines, and photographs. All are ideas for books I planned to write. Let me tell you, I will never live long enough to write all the books that go with each idea in the box. The funny part about this box is that for some of the ideas, I can no longer remember the story that I thought would be of interest to readers or fun for me to write. But I don’t throw them away. Maybe, just maybe, they will trigger a block-buster story, and I will become the next Nora Roberts. Smile here. I can dream big.

So take some time to go through your treasure box and remember those troughs and peaks in your life. Then go live the kind of life that will add more treasures to your box.

If you haven’t started a box, maybe this is the time to find a unique looking one for those moments you want to keep of piece of.

Believing in Tomorrow,

Gini