9:33 am

Music box

musicbox-journal When I left home I didn’t have much space in my suitcase to take personal possessions after clothing and other essentials were accounted for. Besides that I am a light packer even if I was about to get a plane and fly across the ocean to start my adult life.

I took a number of small items, a gold bracelet my mother gave me, a small brass bell necklace that was my great grandma’s (which hangs in the kitchen, maybe her spirit will help me be a better cook.) I took two things though which I consider to be my most treasured possessions. A journal and a music box.

My father gave me the journal when I was about 17. It’s leather cover is worn and a little dog-eared. It is obvious it was (and still is) well loved. The paper is beautiful but some has been ripped out (by my dad I assume.) What remains is some of what my father wrote when he was a teen and then many blank pages, some of which I have filled but as odd as it may sound I fear writing in it. I want what I write to be as beautiful as what he wrote.

The music box is from a man named Rodney, perhaps the friend that I have had the longest, no matter that he is perhaps 40 years older then I. As a child he was a family friend. I remember him towering over everyone in the room, his funny stories told with the skill of medieval bard (but he is not that old I believe…) I don’t remember how old I was when he gave me the box - I know it was while I was still in France, so it must have been before I was 14. The simple wood box is from Switzerland and has dried mountain flowers pressed into the top, I do not know the name of the song it plays but it is lovely.

I don’t know why I chose to bring these two things other then I couldn’t leave them behind. They connect me to my past and in a way, my future - as I feel I will have them with me for a long time to come.

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