Boxes

January 2019

Boxes

Moving house and home, which I have done far more times than the average person, and packing boxes of stuff made me think of all the boxes I have packed and unpacked in my life and what they have represented; change of lifestyle; change of status, from single to married; to divorced; change of countries and jobs. Life changes packed into boxes. Boxes that have contained everything from normal household items, linens, pots and pans, clothes, sometimes furniture and all the other small things which we collect: photographs, books, art work and then those small most precious items, those made by my children in school projects, some identifiable, others perhaps not but all made specially for me. But more than just being items, they are bits and pieces of life, my life and my memories.

Boxes - there are many types of boxes, the real, physical cardboard ones into which we pack those bits and pieces; then there are the mental and emotional ones, the ones we put ourselves into and the ones where others place us.

I reflect on the real boxes I have packed and what they represent as well as on the fact that the first time I changed my life by moving from England to Canada with my new husband and baby, our lives were packed into two wooden tea chests - all that we apparently needed to start a new life in a new country. There were many subsequent moves, involving one or two boxes more each time untiBoxesl eventually in more affluent circumstances, moving an entire household, with the help of movers, with every size of box imaginable including wardrobe boxes.

Which brings me back to now, a solitary move by me which involved leaving the country for another and leaving a home I created and lived in for 16 years, the longest I have ever lived in one place. This time I have compacted my life into 8 boxes, some small, some medium size. They contain a lot of the things that were in previous boxes, the children’s mementos, the photographs, souvenirs from friends and congratulatory letters from clients and friends; I have had to relinquish almost all of my book collection which felt like donating a kidney to me but I can no longer cart around 300 or so books. As my son once said in exasperation to me on one of those previous moves after he had carried out thirteen boxes of books “have you read all of these?” and when I acknowledged that I had he said “then why are you taking all of them with you?” An unanswerable question for me because I would have to say “they are part of me”.

How do we pack our entire lives into a few cardboard boxes? Excluding the obvious question of cost,  why do we do it - why not just walk away, leave it all behind and start over? Do the boxes merely contain our stuff or something more meaningful. Is it an essential ritual marking some passage of time? Do we try and catch elusive, ephemeral but important memories? Do the contents re-assure us that everything in life is real and tangible and those are the benchmarks which define our physical and emotional lives? Do we need to do this packing and unpacking for reasons other than the obvious ones of practicality?

Because there are the other kind of boxes; the ones we place ourselves in; where we define ourselves; where we create our identity, our persona and our personality. Not only how we see and think of ourselves and our abilities but how we present ourselves to the world at large. Do those boxes free us or constrain us? Can we climb out of them as easily as we sometimes seem to climb into them? Do they really offer a safe haven? Are we following our natural human instincts for sanctuary and comfort or are they a place to hide our deepest anxieties so that we don’t have to confront them ?

We build mental and emotional boxes, some very sturdily, put together with lots of strong tape and packing material so that they won’t fall apart on us and spill the contents. This is where we create our thoughts, generate our feelings and form a perception of ourselves that we feel comfortable or uncomfortable with. Within this box is our idea of how we should present ourselves to friends, family, society and the world at large. This is where we think we find our place in the world. If we do this, if we define ourselves within the narrow confines of this box does it free us to live more complete lives? Or does it protect us from our own fears and misgivings?  For most of us the answer probably lies in how honest we can be in our internal dialogues and that  it is all  a mix. It may well make us feel safe and secure in some ways but it can also be  a constraint, an imaginary and emotional  fabrication keeping us penned in a small intellectual environment, unadventurous, timid and afraid to explore the outer limits of our particular universe, our lives, our lifestyle and our abilities; unwilling and unable to fulfill our hopes and dreams. It takes guts to undo the tape and leave the box and go exploring.

Then there are the boxes we place other people in guided by our maybe superficial perception of them; the way they present themselves to us and the world; the way they speak, the way they dress, their jobs, their house, their car, their activities. On this basis, we  rush to judgement because it’s so much easier to categorise someone and place them neatly in a pigeonhole that we can identify with; it makes us feel comfortable and in control. It may even give us, rightly or wrongly, a sense of power whether or not we eventually find out whether or not we were correct in this original judgment. I wonder how often we get it right; I suspect we frequently make incorrect and superficial assessments - there is nearly always something more to all of us that we don’t necessarily reveal spontaneously for many reasons - some valid, some not.

I like the idea of emptying the boxes, letting it all spill out onto the floor, pawing through the contents and really examining them; making decisions about what is valuable and worth keeping and what is junk to be discarded. then crushing the boxes once they are emptied. Liberating and opening ourselves up to the endless possibilities and potential within us and around us. Freeing ourselves to be anything we desire or at least to make the attempt. 

I long ago concluded that boxes are un-necessary and should not be used for non-essentials nor for anything else except packing physical items. Not only are they  not wanted on the voyage of intellectual and emotional discovery, they will prevent and make impossible any exploration or growth - which can only be achieved with a completely open, unfettered mind.

In which box have you placed me?

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