The Empty Warehouse
I looked around and beheld a whole universe full of empty boxes.
One day I was looking inside myself and I came across a warehouse. It was a vast warehouse, I don't know how I missed it. It was exactly as big as the universe that you and I live in.
Looking through that warehouse I found a box that was meant for me. It was completely empty, and I could not understand why it should be so. I had some vague memory of gifts in my life that were meant for this box. I would accept them with a grateful heart, and pretend to put them there, only to put them somewhere else. Sometimes I would find something precious inside the box and take it out, thinking it must be in the wrong place. Outside of the box these treasures turned to dust or became impossible to find again.
I do not know why I had done all of this. It seemed to me now a mistake. The idea came from somewhere that this box was not meant for treasure. I didn't realize that idea had taken hold, and so it had taken hold of everything.
There were many empty boxes like that in the warehouse. I looked around and beheld a whole universe full of empty boxes. Because the box that was meant for me was empty, the boxes that were meant for other people were also empty. I had been waiting to receive the treasure I could put in those boxes, but here they were, empty. I felt an unbearable sadness. Perhaps I should have been out discovering that treasure, or crafting it myself.
I kept looking, wishing to find something besides empty boxes. I understood that the emptiness I feel sometimes in the universe I live in with you is an echo of the emptiness I find here. I made a quiet decision to look for new treasure, and to be open to the treasure that finds me.
<3
I have a place of empty boxes. I do prefer those to the museum full of bad things though. No one likes a broken heart, a severed ear, a crushed plaything, cut wings, ripped diaries, etc. The quiet and shocking display of things that happened and can't be undone. I much prefer the sad emptiness of what could have been. Some things that were left in the box were destroyed or moved or taken and not replaced like you said. It was like they could only be alive in that warehouse, but that warehouse wasn't a safe place for them. Empty boxes have me wondering. I try to place the sound of crunched gravel and the sweet smell of morning pine needle dew, but it isn't enough to hold. There were endless moments where things could have maybe been something to carry and keep, but I see a lot of turned backs and moments where no one showed up. Like a story with few words or lines written and then blank. Sometimes we don't get the shiny, glowy thing. We get a hand-me-down. We get a mixed bag. I look through some of the boxes in other hidden places (storage unit, garden shed, attic) and wonder what IS this thing used for?! Sometimes something that was grossly sewn together in a patchwork of macabre but somehow beautiful and interesting. A room of invention. Sometimes there is a perfect mechanism ticking away. Sometimes things never grow or bloom. They are dead seeds on a hard ground surrounded by tools that aren't meant for the job. But... sometimes we find the things that were meant specifically for us. Sometimes we find the pieces inside of ourselves and we are able to build something new or nurse something to life. I think those types of treasures are often buried and a bit harder to access though. I found the best things by going, doing, and approaching life with vulnerable curiosity. I remember faces of strangers or near strangers as I passed through ancient streets and shared the same food and the same view as others. We became connected in these shared experiences and we shared smiles with open hearts as we made our way out to the shore or up to the peaks. <3