The Anything Box I bought in Big Sur to honor the one I lost in my twenties

I was a junior in college when I first discovered an Anything Box. I was taking a class called “Leadership in Action,” but we fondly called it “group therapy.” The graduate level seminar, consisting of 8 students in a Breakfast Club-like setting, was taught by two fantastic and popular professors and was unconventional, to say the least. For one class, our teachers assigned us the task of going to Toys-R-Us, buying a toy that “spoke to us,” and writing about the experience. At the time, I was about to take the MCATs, the dreaded standardized test required for application to medical school; my college sweetheart had just proposed marriage to me on the night Bush Senior invaded Iraq; my family was in counseling after a litany of personal tragedies; and I saw my life mapped out in precise detail, plot by plot on a graph in a straight line of tedium. After choosing my toy, this is what I wrote.

The Essay I Wrote When I Was 21

At the toy store, I find myself irresistibly drawn to one curious toy. The toy lies on the bottom shelf of a miscellaneous, unmatched aisle of items. The toy is a box, bright red plastic, colorfully decorated, shaped like an elementary school pencil box. But this box is different because a pencil box has a purpose. It’s manufactured for the sole purpose of holding and organizing pencils. This shiny box says, “The Anything Box” across the top. The label reads, “You can put ANYTHING in here. The choice is yours. The Anything Box lacks any specific purpose. It isn’t just for pencils or glue or lunch money. The Anything Box has potential.

I pick it up and think about what a curious toy I have chosen. I open it and find nothing inside. No Cracker Jack surprise or instructions for use. Only a flat bottom, a red void which looks strangely complete without anything inside. I feel reluctant to let anyone put something inside this box, because candy will leave a syrupy residue on the shiny interior and marbles or jacks would ruin the comfortable symmetry of the rectangular space.

What joy this must bring to children. I remember the boxes I cherished as a girl. Boxes with lids and locks to separate what is inside from what is outside. My favorite box concentrated all of my favorite toys in the same place. By simply opening a lid, I could find the cut-out of my Newborn Baby Tender Love, a comic strip of Snoopy imprinted on a thin slab of Silly Putty, a fat piece of Bubble Yum. The box of treasures could be quickly found and shared with bosom friends, or it could be hidden in the backyard where only I could find it.

As I grew older, the Silly Putty fell by the wayside and the cut-out baby doll grew limp with love, until they no longer held important places in my box. Instead the box housed memories of Kevan- the Miss Piggy drawing he gave me, the shriveled daisy, the folded note. I held the only key, so no one could enter that world without my permission. Kevan never found out about my four-year crush, but that box still has the acrid odor of a dead daisy and the schoolhouse scent of pencil drawings. When Kevan moved out of my life, I emptied the contents of my box and filled it again with new pieces of my life. The folded poems I wrote, straight A report cards I couldn’t let me friends see, and a love note from my new boyfriend.

It used to be so easy to change what the box held. Toys come and go with uncanny regularity- loving parents make sure of that. Boys enter and leave my life, leaving rose petals and prom invitations. When the contents of the box lose their magic, I can always clean it out and start fresh. But something has shifted lately. I feel like my box is full, with no room to breathe. Inside my box are letters of forever from my fiancé, a medical school acceptance letter, photos of my baby sister who is almost all grown up now, a golden cross. The box looks neat, filled, organized, secure, and very, very locked. I don’t remember whether the bottom is shiny or if it has open space anywhere. I haven’t seen the bottom for quite some time, and I’m afraid of the sight of it. The shininess might have worn off, leaving gaping holes and jagged edges. I’m terrified to empty my box, because I might never be able to fill it again. I don’t think the vast emptiness excites me the way it once did. Maybe I’ve lost the imagination it requires. Maybe I’ve just lost my nerve.

I guess that’s why I chose the Anything Box. It looks so clean, so fresh, so empty. Maybe this Anything Box is like my life- maybe it’s the beginning of a new freedom it’s taken me a long time to find. Maybe nothing has changed on the surface- I still look like the same person. But I’ve bought a new box. Like the one in Toys R Us, it gleams with the shiny glow of newness. It sparkles with the excitement of potential. But this time, it’s not made of plastic or wood or ceramic, it has no shape or color, because it doesn’t exist as a tangible object. Instead, it’s only a feeling, a bit of anxiety, a goal, a joy, a fear, a space with room to grow.

Mojo Exercises

The idea of the Anything Box has stuck with me. From time to time, I take stock of what's in my Anything Box now- and sometimes I find that it's time for Spring Cleaning. What about you? Here are two Mojo exercises I do with people who take my workshops:

1) Go to a toy store and let your authentic self pick whatever it wants. Buy the toy. Take it to a quiet place with you. Pull out your Joy Journal, and let it rip. Write about whatever that toy brings up for you.

2) Find an empty box of some sort. This is your Anything Box. Clean it out if it's messy or crowded. Enjoy the quiet, clean emptyness. Now write on little slips of paper everything that's filling your Anything Box. For me right now, it's time with my 3 year old daughter Siena, my job at Clear Center, hiking in Muir Woods, making art, preparing raw foods for my family, keeping in touch with Mom, family playtime on weekends, teaching and creating curriculums for workshops, writing my next book...you get the picture. Write each thing that fills your time on a separate slip of paper. Watch your Anything Box fill up. Now take stock of what's in it. Is it time to clean something out? If you discover things in your Anything Box that no longer serve you, take out those slips of paper and burn them ceremoniously. Is something missing from your Anything Box? Dream it into being.

Tell us what's in your Anything Box. What's missing from it? Have you done some Spring Cleaning? Did anything get burned? Did you go to a toy store and pick a toy? What did you write? Please share, Pinkies....

With boxes full of joy and potential,

Lissa