“So I got this box from my parents
the other day...”
“Oh dear Lord, not “the box”...” my
friend RJ shuddered “psychically” on the phone before I’d even begun to explain
anything. (What can I tell you, we’ve known each other since kindergarten and we
both know our families all too well.)
“I got “the box”, well, actually three of them a few years ago from my
parents, and I kinda wished I’d never opened them” he added. “Did you already open yours?” he winced.
Honestly, I don’t know if this is
strictly an American tradition, or
perhaps just a Midwest curse upon children who grow up and move away, or if this is a worldwide
phenomenon. But where I come from, there
exists an apparently unspoken parental rite of passage; an inexplicable day,
month or year, when those that have labored, nurtured and sacrificed for the
care of their young, purge the guano of the bat colony’s pups out of the cave
for good.
Having left a precious golden chest
(I kid you not!) of treasures from my childhood, high school and college years
in my parent’s Fortress (again, I kid you not); apparently my time capsule of
memorabilia had reached its expiration date.
And so my parents
shipped me my schist.
(Yes, I collected rocks. And I’ll hop on a High Horse right now if you
make fun of me.)
Chronologically out of order, I next
stumbled upon a few items from my years at the University; including some sentimental
items of clothing, as well as my glitter-bedazzled mortarboard (graduation
tassel still attached), which my Mom had blissfully contained in its own
plastic baggie. (Uck... GLITTER! One tiny nostalgic peek inside the bag, and I wound
up with about five specks of gold mocking me on the carpet, which having
travelled across the US, had now begun to nomadically multiply and maneuver
their way throughout my entire apartment. (Sure I can run a vacuum over those glistening
dots a gazillion times, flick them around easily with my pinkie and vacuum
again, but they WON’T GO AWAY.)
Nevertheless!
Delving into the bottom of my
Pandora’s Box, I smiled fondly at some High School items which I hadn’t seen in
decades; and looking forward to all the sentimental goo attached to those
formative years, I actually gasped at the Evil horrors which I had unwittingly
released...
Rummaging through a Senior Album of
sorts, I excavated what must’ve been an envelope of fifty or so class pictures
of my schoolmates from the 80’s – all with embarrassingly gigantic Aqua Net hair-sprayed
bangs in the photos, coupled with optimistic swirly handwriting on the back;
most of which were emblazoned with the same sentiment over and over of “don’t
ever change!” (Dear GOD, what were we
THINKING?)
Now, from a purely archeological
pondering over the unfortunate documentation of our desired “look” back in the
day, I couldn’t help but wonder: A.) Was
there a time in the Pleistocene period of Neanderthals when their children
looked up at the cave paintings of their parents and grunted an “Ooogh” with
embarrassment that the elders felt comfortable mixing and matching so many clashing
animal prints? B.) Exactly how much of
the earth’s ozone did my classmates and I destroy with all of that aerosol in
order to try to look like Farrah Fawcett?
C.) Will the offspring of today’s youth look back at Grandpa’s Facebook
page forty years from now and wonder why Gramps’ plaid boxers rode so much
higher than his pants, as well as how could Grandpa even sit down when his designer
back hip pockets were drooping behind his knees?
But I digress!
Mining further into the pre-printed
album which provided fill-in spaces for our answers to such penetrating
questions as “favorite teacher”, “favorite class” and “favorite part about
being a senior”, I was mortified by
the majority of my responses.
The shards of history glared at me –
the snot-nosed, self-entitled, demonic teenage rebellious ramblings of a
smart-assed brat who thought she knew absolutely everything there was to know in the world at the tender age of 18. Good Lord, how on earth did my parents ever
put up with me? (Seriously -- if I were them, I would’ve saved myself the drama and devoured
my young.) No wonder they wanted to get rid of my schist!
(Side Note: As I so often share my dreams on this blog – nocturnal and/or
realized – I must say that I thrashed uncomfortably in my sleep that night, as
I found myself being bullied by modern day teenaged girls with iPhones who
mocked me relentlessly whilst we were stuck in a trapped elevator of a high
rise building.) (Yeah, don’t really need an interpretative book to dissect that one.)
However!
My archeological dig into Pandora’s
Box, did proffer some long lost
treasures:
Disbanding the final sacred burial
tomb (actually it was a Christmas tin
with two rubber bands around it), I delicately parted the Shroud of Turin (or, you know, my Mom used a towel) and
stared wide-eyed at the trove before me...
Could it be? Were there really ninety or so Pirate “pieces of
80’s”?
In perhaps my most spectacular dig
into the past (lava glass rocks and fossils notwithstanding), I’d recovered promotional
buttons from my favorite 1980’s musical bands!
There were Adam and the Ants! There was Loverboy! There were the Police! There was Bow Wow Wow! There was even Van Halen (prior to the Sammy
Hagar years)!
Yes my friends, I have in my possession, the VERY FIRST MTV Birthday cake pin with a one year candle on it! (Believe it or not children, they used to actually ONLY show music videos on that channel! (The button is dead center if you can see it above.)) And to this day, I’ll never forget the very first MTV premiere of The Buggles performing “Video Killed the Radio Star" – the unsung heroes who I believe innocently launched what has now evolved into the universal phenomenon known as You Tube.
After spending some time with
Pandora’s Box, I think I’ve begun to make peace with my past, present and
future. (Although I must say, I’m STILL experiencing lucid dreams which take
place in the house where I grew up.)
But at least I now fully understand
my compulsion to occasionally spend a few bucks on a piece of jewelry as long
as the rocks catch my eye. My inner
youthful Geologist deserves to be nurtured and respected for the vast advances she
achieved as a child. (That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!)
In reverence to my High School
years, I pulled out an iTunes gift card that had been gathering dust in a
drawer since a television Director gave it to me awhile back; and sorting
through the catalogue of available songs online, I now possess a small library
of tracks which hurtle my pea brain twenty years back into the punk rock/post-punk
era should I ever feel nostalgic for the days when I hadn’t a care in the world
that was bigger than my hair.
And as to the University which
provided some structure towards my “glistening” future, I’m bravely embracing
the new world and all of its shining opportunities. After all, I’ve made it all the way to Tinsel
Town! And despite a temporary slump this
year in gainful employment, my hopes remain high for crawling in on the ground
floor of any potentially highly rated successful sit-com later in the fall
season.
Now, if I could just excavate the brain
of the snot-nosed know-it-all brat from my past that once was me, perhaps I
could learn how to download iTunes music from my computer to my Kindle Fire (Ooogh!),
and figure out how to recover a picture lost in the cavernous depths of my cell
phone!
Wishing you all a box full of joy,
~”Pendora”
