Monkeys, Treasure Chests & Sisters from Outer Space

In my bedroom there's a chest I've had for a thousand years.  I had bought it when I was a kid because it actually looks like a real pirate’s treasure chest.  From the moment I first saw it, I knew right from that moment it was destined to hold my all my treasures. Ironically I recall not really knowing what my treasures were or what to fill it with.

These days it stands on one end in the corner of my bedroom pretending to be a side table and a large white vase holding green bamboo adorns it.

Over the years, that chest has held some of my most important things.  While I travelled the world in my twenties, it travelled from house to house with my parents – stored in garages and dusty attics.  All the time holding the things I didn't ever want to lose.

My treasure chest holds important documents, photos, some small treasures of my youth, but most importantly it holds evidence of something much more valuable. More than just memories and newspaper clippings of past achievements.

Before I go further, you need to know a few things.

I was a great ponderer as a child. A child philosopher if you will.  I thought a lot, and I mean a ‘lot’ about things even when I was very little. I was utterly troubled by many things in my young world.  Why were married people who separated suddenly dwarfs (slightly confused with divorced)? I thought it rather unfair that you lost a foot or so just for splitting from your wife. Just one of a filing cabinet full of questions locked away in my small brain.

'Golden rules' were things they handed out at school to help you draw straight lines – only I never got one. Well, not like I’d hoped anyway.  Our teachers were from outer space because they were called unusual names that all started with Mr or Mrs. – not like we the pupils.

Sadly, as was often the case, the reality turned out to be not so impressive as the explanations I had manufactured in my little head. On one occasion I had the misfortune of crossing out three of the big mysteries in life by being sent to see the ‘Sister’. She sounded friendly enough…

The sister was in fact a 90 year old nun, the only ‘mercy’ was her age which somewhat diminished her ability to smack me repeatedly with what I now understood to be a ‘ruler’, for having broken one of her many ‘golden rules’. All very confusing.  As for the monk aka friar, he wasn't the type you’d want to throw produce at or ask for a piece of flake and a small serve of chips.

The reality was often very disappointing and not nearly as interesting as the explanations I had come up with. I was often so appalled with the alleged ‘truth’ that I simply refused to adopt an alternative view.  Not only that, I was stubbornly protective of my interpretation of the world. In my first year at school, I liked to stand at my classroom table much to the dismay of my teacher, because my chair and table were standing.  Why should I sit if they have to stand all day on their own legs?  Did my table and chair go for a run after school?  Why else would they have legs?

Looking back now, I can understand how I might have driven teachers mad.  “When Jesus was alive, who mowed the grass?” “What does circumcised mean?” The bible was a Pandora’s box my poor teacher chose to open every Friday afternoon.  She had it coming I say.   

“Brodie has difficulty understanding bla bla bla.” “Brodie often finds himself day-dreaming and has a hard time staying focused” These were the two most repeated phrases in my school reports right through primary school. If only they knew I was so busy trying to create explanations for their ramblings. How did they expect me to focus while drowning me in 'golden rules' and space invader names?

It didn't help that as a little kid I had some ear problems which meant I was partially deaf. So the production line in my brain was not only in overdrive but somewhat like a Chinese car manufacturing plant trying to process and put together 'Japanese' cars with 'Korean' instructions all at full speed with no lunch breaks. Needless to say, things didn't always come out the other end of that process quite right – as I mentioned earlier. Dwarves were mums and dads that didn't live together any more. From this I concluded that they had been shrunk by God for splitting up in the first place. 

I admit, I did sometimes take time out in my head and maybe there was some truth to the whole daydreaming allegation. I do actually recall looking at books standing by the blackboard and thinking ‘if I stare at the cover long enough, I will go into the book like Gumby and Pokey do. Then I can be in that world with them.’ That’d be great but would they help me avoid the blockheads? I’d have to ask about that I thought. 

My fascination with being ‘anywhere but here’ grew over the years and where once pictures were enough to take me there, I soon learnt that the words in the books made it all so much more real. As I learnt to read, I couldn't just 'see' James’ giant peach, now I could taste it too.

Reading described all the details that I once had to process through the Toyota Factory with well, not the most accurate of outcomes. Now I had all the ideas and the answers literally in my two hands. Books told me how to feel, what things were, how they tasted and felt, what they looked like.  Books were recipes for creating ideas and solving puzzles and the mysteries of life.

It was writing though that came to play a very precious part of who I would become.  At first, the pieces I would write were an extension of the sum of all I’d ever read. Books created ideas and doorways to other dreams and stories, I just had to write them. They satisfied a need to create and follow through with an idea. I remember often sitting at my desk in my bedroom as a teenager eagerly scribbling away – I just had to finish the story before I went to bed. Then I would go to bed, thinking about my story and where it might go next. The next chapter often starting in my dreams.

In my later years, my writing was every conversation I’d never had. Poems and stories that allowed me to say goodbye, come to terms with love, happiness, grief and even my darkest depression. It gave a voice to my confidante and secret friend who would both share my excitement and joy and sometimes my pain.

My treasure chest holds all these.  A thousand conversations with me. Everything I’d ever needed to say, everything I allowed myself to share with myself. Sometimes acknowledging hard truths. A testimony to relationship with myself.  Some are badly written, some are desperate or unusual, but it’s not so much the words but what they represent.

That chest helps me to acknowledge my relationship with myself and the very intimate, very private times I've shared with my spirit.  Times where I have reflected on the world around me and how it has impacted on my own little universe. 

When I see that chest, it reminds me to appreciate the gift of being able to have those conversations on paper.  For a moment I allow myself to feel some tenderness for myself, for my unique and pondering soul.  Even if sometimes I don't quite get things right and they come out looking like they are written in Korean.

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