A rock

Yesterday, Memorial Day, I was sorting through some boxes in the garage, trying to make room at some point for the little VW bug Carter recently brought home to work on. I was hoping to have gone through all of this by now, but 5 years is how long it’s taken me to face some of these bins. Feels like a milestone, 5 years of healing.

A stray dog came and found me standing there with the garage door open, and I spent the next 30 minutes corralling her away from our busy road and reuniting her with very worried owners. Her name is Riley and she was a a rescue, too.

My goal is to go through at least one box a day. The emotional energy it takes definitely surprised me. Also, why oh why do we hang on to so much stuff? See previous sentence.

Most of it’s trash now sadly, embarrassingly. But then I come across something boxed willy nilly among items I was about to toss… the first dress I bought for Ivy from Butterfly Kisses when I was pregnant with her. Kid notes in bright marker on lined paper. Mid-2000’s Etsy necklaces lol that I haven’t seen for a couple house moves. A rock I’ve treasured since I was a very little girl…that is what stunned my heart a bit tonight. The wonder at this rock—  that I have the distinct memory of watching my Gram pull out from under her bottom as we sat together on a sand bar in Lake Michigan, when I believed there could be sharks and most definitely dolphins because I saw them off in the distance once! (I couldn’t have been older than 7 years old because that’s how old I was when she passed away.) When she handed me this most beautiful stone and it felt so special and magical. I’ve had this rock almost 40 years, it’s followed me through eight moves in my lifetime! And I’ve not kept it safe, usually it was with jewelry but this time it was at the bottom of a box that almost didn’t make it. Yet it always finds me. 

                                        

And now, I look at it with adult eyes and knowing what rock tumblers are and I wonder if my recollection isn’t fuzzy? Or like Ivy says, maybe my memories got twisted? I know this rock is from childhood but is it the same one Gram handed me that summer day at the Dunes? It seems too nice to be found in the lake like that. Maybe she had it with her all along - purchased at a gift shop or polished from another time with a plan to pretend to find it, so that she could give it to me and create the magic I remember feeling? Like the time my My Little Pony Blossom ate real oats out of its bowl while we ate breakfast at the kitchen table! It was much later when I realized that my mom must have somehow removed a bunch of the oats when I wasn’t looking. But it felt so real and, magical. I still kind of believe… 

Maybe this rock came to be in my possession at some point and I inserted it into my happy sand bar memory, I wish I could remember for sure! It’s something I would do; I can clearly picture when I was like 8 or 9 and I bought an old worn and tattered teddy bear at a rummage sale and then brought it home and went on to act like it had been mine all along and was worn out from my love, like the Velveteen Rabbit.* I loved that bear. 

This rock though, whatever the case, it has found me again. I’m determined to hold on to it more tightly this time.

*also randomly, this week's episode of the Writing Threads podcast has a couple mentions of the ol' Velveteen.