time capsule

I was going to write something about how packing things into boxes during a move makes each box an unlikely little time capsule.

I thought of it when I was taking apart my drafting table: loosening wing nuts was like reading a log of all the other times I have taken it apart and packed it away. Songs and conversations and the kids just the way they were at that moment -- it all gets lodged into the things I'm packing up, like an entire exact snapshot of my life, revealing later the things I don't see right then, busy as I am with my screwdriver and sharpie.

And, to accompany this witty and poetic something about time capsules, I was going to put in a photo that Jason took in the midst of our packing, of Isla, gracefully contorted in a wee box and taken from above; her sweet little face the very specimen I most wish I could preserve.

But I couldn't find the picture anywhere (and OH, I looked). It's probably on the hard drive of the big computer, the one that got packed away and stayed behind, and that's just it, isn't it? That's just the rub.

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