Behind the Ironic Column

My campaign to sort through, and potentially eliminate, some of the ‘stuff’ I’ve acquired continues in a fitful way.  I’m working on two other projects, both of which are more appealing, so this sorting chore gets pushed to the bottom of the list.  And now that spring is more officially here, there’s no contest between the choice of going for a walk to look at spring flowers and staying indoors to sort dusty objects.   Not that sorting is all bad – I happily spent several hours at it last weekend when the rain was pouring down and no movies were exciting enough to get wet for. 

The point of this story is that I found a rock, well a stone really since it’s smooth and polished and not at all craggy or rock-like.  It was inside a wooden box – made of balsa or something similar that’s very light weight.  I remember the box –it originally had incense in it and I’ve always used it to store things I wanted to keep.  I can visualize that box in a number of different desk drawers over the years.  The other contents now are all things I recognize that have sentimental value to me – I doubt that even on E-bay I could find anyone interested in the assortment of fountain pen nibs or the gift box I received with the fountain pen itself or my PBK key.  But this stone eludes me.  I don’t know what the stone itself is – grayish with a pearly cast, but clearly rock and not shell, smooth like the stones that shops used to label as “worry stones.”   Maybe that’s all it is – a worry stone that accidentally dropped into this box during one of the dozens of moves I’ve made.  It’s ironic, then, that it now causes me a small tinge of worry.  Why don’t I remember where it came from or why I would have valued it enough to put it in that box.   There are certainly many other containers of rocks, and stones, and shells that I’ve saved over the years.  But they’re not in the box with things that date back to college days. 

I know a place that sells stones like this – maybe they’ll be able to tell me what this one is.  There’s some satisfaction in labeling – but it won’t tell me what there was about the stone or how I received it that made it worth keeping.  Perhaps it’s a stone that I need in my life at the moment.  I recently went to a lecture about stones and crystals and their properties – and how they affect our energy fields.  We’ll see if this stone has something to tell me.

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