Old Photos, Dark Chocolate, Running Shoes and Chew Toys by Deb Gail

What’s in my personal time capsule?

Three photos held up by French magnetic poetry on our magnetic board (we have a magnetic board because our refrigerator is stainless). One is of my two daughters (7 and 9) and me on their first day of elementary school in Wisconsin in front of the house we lived in after we moved out of the six-week rental but before we moved into the house we live in now (all in the space of two years). I’d woken up early to do my and their hair for the first day of school and we ‘re smiling and we all look so hopeful and naïve… The second one is a photo of my son (about a year old) on my husband’s shoulders in matching red bandanas and blue eyes and rakish grins… The third one is from Italy last year, my two daughters, my son and me in front of the Coliseum. It was ninety-five and we were sweaty and dehydrated and sick of crowds and our oldest daughter kept saying, “I think I’m too old to be on vacation with my parents.” Her head is cocked sideways and her lip is curled. Our son looks like he might puke (I think he did later that day). Our middle daughter is smiling (but it’s an I’m-trying-to-look-like-I’m-having-fun-in-Italy smile) and I’m wilting against some old stone wall in big dark sunglasses my long hair sticking to my neck not even faking a smile. The fact that my husband isn’t in the picture and is the one insisting we take the picture and trek all the way to the Coliseum and stand in line and LEARN something whether anyone wants to not, and that it captures such a real and honest moment and that every time we’re all together sitting around the kitchen island looking at this photo we all crack up, is part of what makes this picture so precious to me.

Dark organic chocolate

Yoga mat

Running shoes (my current new favorite light-weight, lime-green and white Asics that make me feel as if I’m going faster than I actually am).

My blue kayak (is that too big for a time capsule?). If so, replica of it.

A galley of Cancer is a Bitch which (because it’s a memoir) is pretty much the story of my life up until last August.

My MacBook (everything that isn’t in my memoir is likely on my desktop).

Scraps of paper scribbled with half-baked ideas and random thoughts I meant to flesh out and write about that likely reveal things about me and the world I still haven’t figured out.

And two gummy puppy chew toys that squish between my toes when I wake too early to let the puppies out…

Deb Gail