The Box by Wayne Smith

The Box
Feb 4th 2012

Audio Recording:  Read by Wayne Smith

http://db.tt/mndZrK7S

I saw the box only a  few times in my lifetime. Mother would be carrying it, tears in her eyes.

My mother  passed away recently and I asked my Dad if I could have the box. He said:

"Take it."

I was delighted; the box looked old yet well preserved. 

I opened the brass latch, lifted back the brown leather lid.  Inside I found old family
photos and my grandmother’s saved letters home from her lost son Roy while he was here in Canada training to be a British Lancaster bomber pilot.

Near the end of the Second World War, Roy’s plane was shot down over Nuremberg, Germany. His body was never found.

My grandmother hoped he had been taken prisoner and would return home once the War was over.  She waited many long months, in vain.  I believe she wrote letters in search of her lost son.

It is that loving grandmother’s search that makes me feel, and the memory of my own mother’s pain whenever I saw her with the box, that is a reflection of that painful search.

Roy’s letters home are the hopes and dreams of a  twenty year old British lad. In them he asks if his mom could send him clean pajamas.  Or he is telling her the only girls the army could find for them at the airmen’s dance were all thirty years of age or older.

"Oh, Mum—I had to dance with thirty year olds, I will never live it down."

Ironically, he never did.

Today I hold the box as a treasure of love and hope, held for so many years by my grandmother, my mother, and now by me.  I hope to add the gift of a story to that box, passing the box on one day to someone who holds a memory precious.

Thanks, Mom.

(c)2012 Wayne Smith

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Wine & Write with Grind Writers - May 20, 7pm

Wine & Write

“Ernest Hemingway loved the Mojito, William Faulkner had his mint juleps, and F. Scott Fitzgerald was convinced gin was the way to go (he thought its smell would be undetectable on his breath).” ~NPR

Could a little sip from the bottle help all of us writers? We’ll find out at an experimental Wine Tasting/Writer’s Workshop on Friday, May 20 at 7pm.

We’ll sniff and sip before we get set on a variety of writing journeys. There will be reading aloud of stories, but don’t worry, the wine should unleash your confidence, inhibitions, and brilliance… or so this is the thought. Very experimental! Definitely fun! I will be leading this as the writing facilitator.

When the wine is in, the wit is out

~Proverb floating around the Internet

I guess we’ll find out.

*Seating is limited so please sign up early to save your spot.

When	Friday, May 20, 7 to 9pm
Where	Harvest Table, Legacy Liquor Store (yes, a liquor store with a beautiful wooden table where we can sip and write). 1633 Manitoba Street in Olympic Village. Five minute walk from Science World/Main Street Skytrain.
Cost	$25 for Wine, Bread and Cheese
Who	Who: For writers and aspiring writers led by writer and writing facilitator Gloria Chang (www.gloriachang.com)
How	How: Sign up through Gloria’s recently launched meetup group for eaters and drinkers: www.meetup.com/culinary-adventures-vancouver Or send Gloria an email: gloria@gloriachang.com
What to bring	A notebook and pen or laptop to write on.

  

Here’s a link to a special web feature by NPR on writers and their cocktails

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6624971

More info:   Gloria Chang

E:   gloria@gloriachang.com
T:   www.twitter.com/gloriajchang

Their Painted Faces - by Bonnie (c)2011

Prompt:  If you could start your life over what would you do differently?

            Maybe I would start wearing makeup at a younger age. I know, I know…most people would probably choose something like:  I would spend more time in the garden or I would judge less and listen more.  But do you have any idea how hard it is to learn to apply makeup when you are in your forties?   

           When I was younger I never had need of it. I was always athletic and fit and looked great in just my skin. Now, even though I am still in fairly good shape, still healthy, I need whatever help I can get to make me look a little more attractive, or at least a little younger. So I have decided to start spackling my face with colour.  Makeup!  Now there’s a minefield.  Who knew it was so complicated?  

            When I was a kid, my sister had one of those Barbie Styling Head toys. Have you ever seen one of these things?  It creeped me out then, and the thought of it still makes me shudder a little.  It’s basically a large, plastic doll’s head cut off at the shoulders and fitted onto a base. Little girls create hairstyles and apply makeup to it.  My sister would spend hours playing with this thing, experimenting with colour schemes and dressing the hair in different styles, but I never really got it. 

            “This look is for when she is going out on the town,” she’d say very seriously, standing back so I would have sufficient room to appraise it properly.  Or, “here she is going to work in an office.”

            I would roll my eyes at her and head outside to play with the boys. War was the name of our game.  It involved sticks and running around trying to use them on each other.

            Even as a teenager I became disoriented whenever I walked into the bathroom at school and found myself confronted by a line of girls jockeying for space in front of the mirrors.  There would be a noxious cloud of hairspray hovering over them as they applied yet another layer of sticky lip gloss onto their pursed lips. 

            I preferred sports, and still do.

            But now I find myself crawling back to those very same girly types I distained, sadly in need of some help.

Twenty year old makeup counter girls explain to me the absolute necessity of concealer and discuss the pros and cons of shades of brown vs. shades of green eye shadow with my skin tone.  I try to focus when they’re talking, honestly I do—but I find myself staring at their painted faces and wondering if I dragged my finger down their skin, would it leave a trail? 

            Maybe if I had spent less time running around in the empty lot behind my house, trying to ambush Mike (who really was a little shit and very deserving of whatever he got), and more dressing up with my sister, I would be having an easier time of this whole aging thing now.

            Maybe, if I had played with the doll’s head I wouldn’t feel so out of touch when I look in a mirror today and wonder about the middle-aged woman staring back at me, or why her hair is such a mess. Would that have staved off the rapid decline of my skin, or the graying of my hair?  Or worse still, the downward migration of my breasts?

            After a day navigating the perfumed makeup counters or the over-priced hair salon that has suddenly become de rigueur, I find myself tying up my sneakers with anxious fingers, desperate for a run, or packing my swim bag and rushing to the pool.  Afterward, in the showers, I notice the sideward glances of teenaged girls. They’re thinking what I was thinking at their age.

            I am never going to look like that. 

            I just smile and turn around to give them a back view of their future horror. And the potions I buy – the lipsticks, the face creams, the powders – just keep accumulating in my bathroom cabinet while I go, go, go.

Fumie's hometown in Japan - Nara