Pendleton box, notes and scarfs

It was cold enough on this trip to wear a scarf. I know that The Boy could not find enough to wear to help keep him warm, even with his new to him leather coat on. I fired up the heater all the way to Boise, and still, it was not enough. It wasn't till I unloaded the car that I found my winter road bag with mittens and scarfs and such. Next time he can be as warm as he wants to be.

I love a good scarf but find that it's never really cold enough here in Port Orchard for me to wear them. When it snows, sure, but most of the time I tend to run too hot to appreciate them. Nevertheless love them. A number of them have managed to come into life over the years. While in the service I had this sort of girlfriend, a roommate of old girlfriend, who gave me a warm and fuzzy brown scarf (check that winter bag, I think that's where it resides!) to take with me to Colorado on my birthday. New Year's Eve in Ordway was cold and snowy that year. What a perfect gift. Then I had this other gal come through my life back in Oregon. She was a weaver. She made a beautiful scarf and passed it along to me. It has to be one of my most cherished possessions. I even have a selection of them that I pulled aside for myself as I cobbled together scarves for our Chimes and Lights display last year. Hard to resist colorful wool scarves at a buck a throw.

Last June I had to show off the tattered scarf box to M. She was surprised to see it, but even more, the contents of the box. The box came to me on the eve of a roadtrip back in December of '05. We weren't planning on exchanging gifts. We thought we had seen each other all we could before our respective holiday trips. She was heading off to the Grand Canyon and family adventures in Arizona. Me, I was heading to a nice hotel and the Snake River and even wilder family misadventures in Boise. As always she had to leave my gifts to her on my kitchen table, but I took that scarf along with me on the road. It warmed me two ways, certainly.

But it was how it was presented to me that made it special, that made that box such a magic thing. I was told that she had it in her closet for years, and that she gave it to me because she had been waiting to give it to someone special.

I can see that scarf right now, in my minds eye, hanging there along with all my ties in my bedroom, pretty to look at, dark blue Tartan weave, but rarely used. It's the box that's been pressed into hard service these last few years. I couldn't toss it, so I used it for letters. Most of our notes to each other were primarily in the form of email correspondance and, at one time, we had bigger plans for those, too. But in the heat of the fires of passion there were deleted, and only a handful of her little notes to me remained. Just enough for a plate's worth of love to quench the hunger pangs of the heart.

So she saw them, my disbeliever, thinking they had been shredded and fed to the little clay fireplace in my backyard years ago. And while that was a possibility at one time, it never happened. Maybe because of that magic box.

My daughter helped me repair that box a couple years ago, and it might need a bit of tape once again. It's coming up hard on winter and I think I could use that scarf again, especially on one of those upcoming road trips to Boise. But for now that box and that scarf are all about memories and sweet thoughts and holiday wishes. And the blessings that went along with a gift that had been waiting for just the right person to come along.

How nice to know that that special someone was me.

Your WHMB