Poosey Digest: Which side of the box?

Greetings from Poosey.

Every time I try to close out a year on my calendar I think of Bev’s box. She and her husband Myron lived just around the corner from us for over 30 years and the gal was one of my dearest friends. For years I’d enjoy fresh ground coffee in her elegant living room. The woman could decorate a turtle and make it tasteful. I’d sit chatting with Bev and she’d give a delightful narration of the various objects around the room… her grandmother’s treadle sewing machine, her great-grandmother’s washboard, a piece of carnival glass she’d picked up at a flea market, and a collection of what Bev called, “little glass nothings.” But prominent in one corner of the room sat an object that seemed completely wrong.

Right there amid this lovely collection of a lifetime sat an ugly wooden box that seemed shockingly out of place. To tell you the truth, it was such an ugly thing that I hesitated to ask its history, but one day my curiosity won out and she saw me staring.

“You’re wondering about my box, Freida?” I told her that I’d been curious for the last twenty years. “It’s got a story.” And she told it.

“I’ve got no idea who made or who owned it. When Myron’s father died we cleaned out his house and we found this old thing up in the attic. I was of a mind to toss it out for the trash man, but I opened it up saw that it was some lady’s sewing box.” Bev brought it to me and opened the lid. “See that? It’s divided into two sections. She had her sewing tools in one half and the other section was filled with scraps of cloth and bits of thread. I just didn’t have the heart to throw away something that had been so much of someone’s life.”

But when I looked in the box I saw nothing but dozens of little bits of paper, each folded and tossed inside one section of the box or the other. “What’s with the paper?” I asked. “That’s another story,” she said.

Bev and Fred are among the movers and shakers ’round Poosey, always first to lend a hand to anyone in need, probably the most well read couple in town, both active in politics, the church, and members of about every organization our little community has to offer. I only mention this to point out that she’s not a little old lady who drinks her Sanka in the morning, does her crossword then spends the rest of the day darning socks and watching her soap operas. The lady knows what’s going on. There have been times in the last election cycle when I’ve gone to her to simply try to get my mind around all the craziness.

“That box,” she said, “is what’s kept me sane.”

She said that like me she’d been more than a little concerned about the way the world is going… nations closing their borders and no longer trying to alleviate the suffering of the rest of the world, a bitter divisiveness throughout the planet, cold wars becoming hotter, a distrust of science and reason… and that she decided that at least in her own personal world she was going to do something about it. “That’s when I found a use for that old box, Freida. You’ll notice it’s sectioned off into two parts. In one half I put the things I can do something about and the other half is reserved for those problems that are beyond my immediate help.”

Bev’s a reasonable lady and when I raised an eyebrow at this strange behavior she said, “And it’s just mine. Mine alone. I’ve found that amid all this insanity I’ve got to separate the two or I’d go batty. In fact, I’d get so busy worrying about the things that I can’t solve that I’m afraid I’ll completely forget what it is that I can fix.”

I sat and stared in dumbfounded admiration as she told me that whenever she was fretting over the way someone was treating his fellow man she’d write it down, put it in the “can’t fix” box, then go out and try to make someone else’s life better that very day. “The trick,” she said, “is to keep each side of the box even. You’ve got to keep the numbers even, Freida. Sometimes I hear something on the nightly news and slip the memory into collection of things I can’t fix, then I’ll make a resolve to go find a problem I can solve the next day… you know, hold a hand, give an ear to someone who’s lonely.”

Bev and Myron are no longer with us. Oh, they didn’t die, they just moved to Phoenix. But I had to smile when last week Herb asked me, “Freida, what’s this dumb little box you’ve got behind the toaster?” I slapped away his inquiring hand and told him it was my New Year’s resolution, and that he was in one side of the box.

You ever ’round Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.