ten to the power of ten = 91

I have ten shoeboxes with lids, nine covered/lined, inside and out, in a wrapping paper, a poster, or collages of images that I like (taken from newspapers and magazines), and one in brown paper (I like ordinary brown packing paper):


one has ten items from my childhood: a little knitted rabbit thing that I now keep safe in my knicker drawer, a Rubik's cube(my little brother was on the radio, at the age of nine, as he was one of the fastest children in London at solving the cube at the time) (I could never get beyond the first layer), two of my favourite childhood books

(one Ladybird book - as above - and a picture story - as below),
.
a strip of satin ribbon (I used to have a "blankie" with a ribboned edge and I'd go to sleep cuddling it and rubbing the soft shiny ribbon on my upper lip), a Sherbert Dip-Dab
.
(or possibly a Sherbert Fountain) (or maybe a packet of Love Hearts), a typed up Shakespeare sonnet (number 18), one of the badges I used to wear on my school blazer, a small wooden sheep with well worn edges, a postcard of a dandelion clock

one has ten photos of places I've been and loved, from my holiday/travel albums and scrap-books



one is filled with ten large biscuits: animal shaped - I have some great biscuit cutters in the shapes of animals, based on Noah's Ark (I like the idea of the ark), made to a recipe of my mother's, Norwegian, called "pepperkaka" (quite spicy: nutmeg and cinnamon and ginger; very crunchy) which people can take out and eat

(yes, I have a polar bear cookie cutter!); or - alternatively ten cupcakes, each with a different Love Heart stuck on the icing (I've been doing these for over ten years, but they seem to be all the rage now, so perhaps I've gone with the animal biscuits after all)


one contains ten small plain notebooks that I've made/bound myself (that people could take if they wanted)


one contains ten small bottles/containers/items comprising my favourite smells/tastes: vanilla (essence - the sort bottled sort that you buy for cooking), coconut (in the form of Hawaiian Tropic sun tan oil!), lemon, freshly ground coffee, a proper French baguette, rosemary (fresh) (or maybe basil?), lavender (flowers), cob-nuts, a pomegranate, a bar of soap (my current favourite being UMI's mulberry and pink pepper)

one contains CDs of ten pieces of music I like (I don't have my vinyl anymore, more's the pity) - it includes versions of the first three 7" singles I ever bought and also the Penguin Cafe Orchestra's Bean Fields (my best piece of "cheering up" music) and also Cat Steven's The Boy With The Moon and Star



one contains ten ripped strips of plain paper with words describing ten things that made me sad. . .



one contains ten items with textures that I enjoy: lichen on tree bark, velvet, coarse linen, the insides of a passion fruit, ordinary packing string, a well worn wooden letterpress letter, barnacles on a mussel shell, sand from my favourite Irish beach (it's the kind made from shards of shells, and the container also includes some shells and pieces of coral from the same beach),
.
regular earth (from a well dug garden), a bunch of feathers tied together with some linen thread, and some rusty metal
.


one contain tens of my favorite postcards from my collection of images (a Hepworth image being my current favourite) one is empty (I like space, and "holes" - especially when an absence shows one what is present) (this box is the brown paper box) but when you lift the lid a mobile would appear (it's attached to the inside of the lid)


I pass the boxes around, with a clip from Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade playing in the background, everyone has a chance to look in at least a couple of the boxes or perhaps more, and I talk about how nervous I am at talking (have had training, in my corporate days, and understand the theory, from my university days, but still dislike public speaking), read from a book I once made about being nervous about making mistakes, talk briefly about the importance of kissing and "gut reaction". . .

and I do not worry about finishing before the allotted time is up. . .

8 comments:

Mel said...

<-- wants to be at the end of the line so she can have all the boxes, please and thank you

Mel said...

(dunno that i'd even dare to open 'em ... sitting with 'em stacked around me and on my lap, watching other people open and you talking would be more than plenty)

Rimshot said...

*calls from the corner* "the THEORY of speaking?"

I, Like The View said...

*clears throat* and repeats: I talk about how nervous I am at talking (have had training, in my corporate days, and understand the theory, from my university days, but still dislike public speaking)

the theory of public speaking, dear shot, you know - standing up on a podium and making a presentation. . .

. . .to an audience

"speaking" I can do

having to do anything in public just makes me knees tremble and my voice wobble and my nerves shatter

I'd love to send you those boxes, dear mel, but maybe the thought of them is enough? what would be in yours?! up to 100 thoughts or memories. . . (I sneaked an extra one in, on my favourite textures, but noone noticed!)

Rimshot said...

Who says noone noticed? Perhaps someone noticed, but chose not to be pedantic.

Mel said...

<-- can podium speak to a bunch of drunks without one iota of nervousness

<-- cannot podium speak to the general public without wanting to throw up

And I liked being at the end, thankyou--cuz I have this thing for watching other people's reactions when they open and explore box contents. Yup--I'm always the last one opening prezzies on holidays!

Nope--didn't notice the extra texture. But then again, I was watching people open boxes and listening intently.

:-)

Anonymous said...

Speaking I can do - even in public if I'm quite convinced it's needed and wanted.
Playing a fiddle in public makes me shake all over and my head goes hot and cold. (except in the band where there's four of us - plenty to cover up any blobs I make!)

Anonymous said...

You never cease to amaze me!
Your strength is like that of a spider web.