365 Days, Day 214

We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box (Author unknown)

We understand that you can't transform people who don't have internal drive and desire to create. But we also know it doesn't work to urge people to think outside the box without giving them the tools to climb out (Laurie Dunnavant)

I am intrigued. I am going for a job interview week after next. In the letter of invitation to the interview it says: Please bring with you any material you may wish to use or show in your interview. I have thought about this all afternoon and have decided on three things, one of which will be a box.

At the beginning of November I wrote about boxes and how exciting it is to get a present in a box tied with a pretty ribbon. Someone was listening: my Mommy! For Christmas I got the dove grey box tied with a red ribbon. Inside was some rose massage oil from the Bryanston Organic market, a beautiful wooden heart pendant (which I wore yesterday), a little fairy notebook and some imported choccies. Thank you Mommy and Daddy.

While thinking about boxes, I came across the pink spotted box which Nicki gave me before we moved here. In it was one envelope for each month with a letter and a photo. (I adapted this idea for my Mom for her Birthday last year: each envelope had a theme and photos relating to this theme and a little pressie, so that her Birthday lasted a whole year). Nicki’s box also had cards and letters from the theatre friends, which they brought to my surprise farewell party (Nicki collected me from my house and blindfolded me and drove me… to her house where all the friends were waiting. Wonderful afternoon). I only opened the cards and letters once we arrived here; I was very moved by the love in their words.

A box can become a metaphor for the experience of life, the intention we bring to it. Many years ago I gave my arts students a task of making a compartmented box (cardboard and papier māché) and filling it with meaningful objects that represented themselves. This was inspired by Joseph Cornell’s boxes. His work and the work of Nick Bantock (Egyptian Jukebox) captivate me.

I have to think about my box for the interview…