Opening The Box
Issue #1 - Opening the Box (Narrated)
What do we keep sealed until we’re ready to face it? For 35 years, I carried a locked box through nine moves across eleven states and countless versions of myself — never ready to open it. Until now.
In this memoir in motion, I reach into that box, blindly, dare I say, bravely — and pull out a memory, a question, a turning point. The stories are personal, sometimes poetic, and always honest. But they’re not just mine.
Because you have a box too.
Let’s open them together.
At midnight, I watched the clock turn from Saturday to Sunday.
So high in the city sky, I didn’t know the weather — had not paid attention, didn’t care, really. I was restless, not ready for sleep, and not interested in finding recreation.
I sat at my desk, chin resting on my upturned palm, staring at the twinkling white lights across the room and out the window — the rows and rows of Philadelphia’s lights.
Unbidden, butterflies rose in my stomach — like starlings mid-migration, flipping east in perfect unison. I recognized the feeling, but there was no reason prompting it.
But certain as the clock had turned, and as unexpected as the starling’s flock, I knew.
It was time.
I remember purchasing The Box some 35 years ago. I don’t recall where.
It must have been a Home Depot, as the bland, camel-colored steel and brown leather handles and small silver lock attest to a mass-produced product.
But what was inside was anything but mass-produced.
The intent was to protect the treasures with the heft of steel — and present a box that did not draw attention from the two husbands whose lives it could have touched. And didn’t.
The Box was always tucked away, remaining quiet and safe, withholding the papers filled with words, thoughts, deeds, passion, love, loss, hopes, dreams.
It was the real-life manifestation of a year’s synchronicity.
I knew at all times exactly where The Box sat. I’d moved nine times in 35 years, back and forth across 11 states. Through seven downsizings. But always, The Box stayed with me.
The Box had been in my best friend’s mother’s attic.
In the stow-away space below a building built in 1835.
In the closet of a penthouse.
In a storage unit while I went to rehab.
I knew, too, where the key was.
That shiny, small piece of silver metal could have sent me traversing paths I was not ready to travel. I knew its location at all times — until it was lost.
It remained so for a number of years, as after 32 years, yet a third marriage became tattered and torn and finally dissolved. The Box came with me, still without a key. Because it was mine.
On this night in March, 2025, I struggled to understand why, suddenly, I was experiencing the sensory expression of butterflies — furiously flapping wings, eager anticipation of something that was to come, though I did not know what.
The feeling began in my stomach and spread across my body — down my arms and legs to fingertips and toes. Up around my head, sweeping instantly yet slowly, between each strand of hair.
Yes, it was time.
No memory jogged.
No call rang.
No email arrived.
No text pinged.
I just knew.
An Indian man named Mr. Patel answered the phone when I called, somewhere around 12:15 a.m.
“Can you unlock my box? The key is missing.”
I had taken photos so he could see the job.
“Of course,” he replied. “Someone will be there shortly. Be downstairs.”
I went to its current location, tucked away neatly in a cubby on the left side of a walk-in closet.
The Box looked at home there, as it always had, in whatever place I’d stowed it. But the energy around it was perky, I thought, as if it anticipated its fortunes were about to change.
I tugged it out, smiling at the thought of what was about to happen — though I wasn’t sure exactly what.
The Box was heavier than I remembered, I thought, awaiting the elevator. I had to hold it with both brown leather handles on the ends. I ran my thumbs over the cold steel lid, believing for a moment that I could feel the warmth inside.
And then, I was on the street, awaiting the locksmith.
The late-winter March wind whipped furiously and frigidly, with prickly sprinkles of rain against my cheeks and blowing my hair in my eyes. My hands trembled. But no matter. I just wanted to see that white van.
And there it was.
The young man took The Box from me and thrust a flat screwdriver once into the silver lock, which popped in a second.
“You won’t be able to lock it again,” he said, taking the cash from me.
“There’s no need,” I replied.
And he thanked me.
Moments later I was back in my apartment, the unlocked box in front of me on my desk.
I realized I had no plan for what to do when I opened The Box.
Should I take out all of the letters and photos and cards I knew were inside?
Should I splay them across the dining room table like a feast, and carefully choose which course to eat first?
I finally decided I’d lift the lid, and with my eyes closed, reach inside until I felt something I wanted to see.
When I opened my eyes, my gaze fell upon this:
Wake for a moment Mary
I must be touched again
to put to rest this flood
no longer how but when.
But no, you dream on, and I
I watch you as you sleep
holding all that you have given me
safely in my keep.-Rob
I was now awake.
We all have The Box in our lives.
It could be a physical one, like mine — or a digital cache, or an emotional bubble we’ve tucked away until the time is right.
In this newsletter, Opening The Box, I will open my box once a week to discover — with a blind hand and much anticipation — what I’m to write about.
I invite you to come with me on the journey, and to tell me the things you discover about yourself along the way.
✉️ Reply to this email and tell me — what’s in your box?
I truly want to know.
And I leave you with this thought:
Finite Heartbeats. Infinite Possibilities.
Thank you for enjoying this issue of Opening The Box. It's an honor to share my treasure with you. Please become a subscriber...I sincerely welcome paid subscribers, but a subscription is free. Paid subscribers will unlock bonus letters, stories from readers and listeners, behind-the-scenes reflections, and the insider's journey behind the romance of a lifetime. Every subscription helps me keep The Box open. With gratitude, Mary