Sea. Womb. Sepulcher. Tomb. Urn. Earth. Air.
One’s self is held and let go of in these spaces.
It seems that I have been contained since leaving the womb, my last intimate space.
I maintain my distance from others, easily hold back. Oh, if pressed to come forward, I
come honestly and openly.
But I don’t linger. I retreat, suspend for the next time.
Yet now I have the desire to curate myself… wrestle with this desire as its origin is
Perhaps it is a way to rationalize or reason a life spent before it is fully spent.
Maybe the objects I curate will sustain some deception or delusion of myself.
Maybe I want to hold my spirit in a way that reflects my path.
Yes, something in that feels closer to truth. Collection as recollection as remembrance as
unclear.
resolution… (or as redemption?).
One’s life is scenes composed of objects. Hence, I will use a nicho box. Not a shadow box,
My own hands will build this container for things which have formed me. The container
Wood that smells like a woman’s blood.
The things I place inside this unpainted, unvarnished nicho box will be equally raw, but
People who knew me won’t recognize them. They’ve never seen all of me at once, so they
since mine will be open. Not an emotional museum since it will house no relics or artifacts.
will be of raw wood. Spruce wood. Barn wood.
touchable.
won’t know how to assemble or interpret the unmatched pieces.
Strangers will have a greater sense of the whole me in that container.
Ten things which vibrate and arc across my life will go into the box. Ten for completeness:
1. The feather of a raptor. Contour, wing, or tail feather doesn’t matter. Each is imbued with the passion and rage of a magnificent aerial striker.
2. A light source. Candle or fallen star, either will do.
3. A natural aroma. Heady lilac, sweet sandalwood, stinky Atlantic ocean brine. Manure is fine, too.
4. A sprinkling of my island’s red soil. The places where I would dig for it are not mine anymore. But, if they were, I would want to scoop the soil, with a prayer, from the long-gone meadow that lined the roadway where the birch sentinels were murdered, where I picked buttercups, where I blew soap bubbles through peeled dandelion stems, where I first rode my pony, where the copse of scraggly spruce became my treehouse.
5. Rock. Sandstone and granite pebbles, striated chert, and a small piece of Welsh flint, please. The finger-sized piece I palmed from Waiheke Island. The black Seattle beach stone dimpled and smoothed by ocean. The blonde sand dollar I found by magic on the flan-like flats in Mendocino.
6. Two leaves from the silver poplar and a scrap of birch bark, naturally shed. Poplar applauds me; it is my greatest fan. But the day I peeled the slender birch below grandmother’s parlor window to write a secret note to myself, she wept. What if it were your skin? she said in a tight, high shout that pierced my gut.
7. Sounds. Crow call brings me north. Redwing blackbird calls me home. Add the opening bars of Piaf’s je ne regrette rien and you have an honest anthem. I must assure that like the words fault, victim, and blame, the word regret is not one I use to qualify my life.
8. Hair from the mane of a quarter horse slick with sweat after a glorious long ride.
9. A remnant of sisal from a potato bag, and the special needle and twine I sewed it with in my first rite of passage the summer I learned that I was not a boy.
10. A red-orange citrine and a champagne diamond. One is a honeyed voice, the other a lilting laugh.
I will arrange the objects to tell a story. The final assemblage will also imply the number
four, the birth sign Sagittarius, the ruling planet Jupiter.
Once complete, my nicho box won’t be hung on the wall. It will be placed to face the throng
and tipped so it sees and is seen by all who pass by or stop and stoop to peer inside.
See me.
Touch me.
Know me.