The little box, and the story of the very nice man…

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So one day, over 16 years ago, I was at a local hardware store with my ex-husband, picking up some nails for carpenters working at home. A middle-aged gentleman stood beside us, picking some stuff up too. He had a thin piece of pinewood (I didn’t know my pinewood from my plywood in those days, though) in his hand. I was completely struck by the beauty of that plank. It was like love at first sight, the way I read about it in books.

Disregarding my partner’s admonitions about reaching out to strangers, I had to reach out and ask to see the plank.

The gentleman must have seen genuine interest in my eyes because he immediately started talking at length about the plank, what he intended to do with it, about pinewood, and what he liked to do as a hobby at home.

With the nails being paid for, the next thing I knew was that I had accepted the gentleman’s offer to show us around his work shed at home, and me and my extremely unhappy and embarrassed partner were piling into his car parked outside.

Did we spend just some time there? Or was it a few hours? No idea. All I have are memories of being introduced to a new world I didn’t know existed. A beautiful little garden work shed. Tools of all kinds. Work tables. Machines. Bits and pieces and piles and stumps of extremely interesting-looking pieces of scrap wood lying everywhere. And a passionately interested-in-his-hobby gentleman talking about all of it with such pride as I had rarely seen in the limited world I lived in.

At the end of that day, I came back home with THAT very plank I had set my eyes upon. I had never dreamed I would own it. But the gentleman, when we were taking our leave, had suddenly pressed it into my hands and said I could have it. He also threw in a few nails, etc. with it and told me to go back and do what I wanted with it.

I came back home, in a daze regarding my prize, and kept it somewhere where I could always see it, and that’s how the next few weeks went.

That’s when my habit of looking at something for very long, and letting it suggest to me what it wanted made out of it, started. And it was then that this little box was conceived. Even the person I would gift it to was decided at that very moment. It would be for Runjhun. An enduring endearing darling presence in my life.

Through this box, I learnt so many things. About sanding and the pleasures it provided in process as well as results. About filing, and the joy of rounded edges. Of learning to saw, that too in a straight line. Of varnishing. Of sealing in. Of tiny fairyworld nails I didn’t know existed in the real world. Of gentle tapping with hammers done right. And so many more things.

Do you like it?