Collections and the Explorer

One of the primary themes in "How to be an Explorer in the World" is to be a collector and the value of collecting interesting things. This is something I understand completely because from a very young age I collected things. Lots of different, strange and peculiar things. Like most kids I collected rocks and shells from the beach. I collected pretty leaves in the fall and picked flowers in the spring.

I also collected odd things, usually things that were small and what I believed to be inconsequential. Things no one would miss, things likely to be forgotten, or I believe had already been forgotten, but held value to me. I never considered myself a thief. I was a collector and a keeper for things that shouldn't be forgotten. Though I'm sure my sisters would disagree with that assessment.

One of the most peculiar things I collected at a child was rock salt. The kind big trucks flung about on the streets in winter time. I loved those big crystals, the way they dried out my skin when I held them. The way my skin smelt and tasted after holding them. I would hid them under my bed and at night I would suck on them - not terribly healthy to be sure. But I loved the saltiness and I loved that they were secret.

Some of the things that I still collect to this day, much to the chagrin of my husband are tea pots, sea glass, books, crystals, African Violets of different colours and boxes.

I love to collect boxes. I don't even always put things in the boxes, I just like having places I can store or more importantly hide things.

This is a picture of just some of my boxes. This collection on the table does not include my many jewellery boxes or some other boxes around the house. This was just a quick grab of the boxes close at hand. Most of these are currently empty.

Going clock wise from the top (where 12 would be) is an empty wicker basket box, with a wooden box my dad made me for pencil crayons on top. I made the handle for the wooden box out of an old button. To the right is a sliding lid wooden box with a moon a gift from my father in law. When I opened it had some old Canadian 2 dollar bills in it. Next to it is a wooden wine box. I painted the bottom black and glued the image on the lid.

At 3 o-clock is a round box made with old newspapers, a gift from my sister. The red and black boxes are simple cardboard boxes I like the shape of.

At 6 o'clock is the wooden box that held out wedding rings. I stained it and added the ring embellishment. The pick box is an empty mint tin. Then at the 9 spot is an empty unpainted wooden box, a cardboard box I decorated with leaf printed paper and finally the large retangle shaped box which once contained stationary.

The boxes in the middle actually contain things.

The oval shaped wooden box, Owen uses to store his little tresures. It was a gift from my father in laws wedding. There is a little wooden box next to it that is actually little drawers - they've empty. The three small boxes in the center contain tiny crystals, beads and amber scent.

Then there's the last box. The one in the very middle. It's not open. It's a puzzle box the key and the key hole are hidden and need to be found to open this box. When I was young my dad set out this box and both my sister and I tried to figure out how to get into it. I did. I found the key and the key hole. My dad gave me the box and I kept all sorts of wonderful little things in it from then on. He got it in Egypt when he was a boy.

So why all of this about collections and boxes? I've been thinking a lot about exploration #9 and thinking about how I would create such a collection.

The case of curiosities is a strange concept to me - things I don't understand or have meaning for. Most people collect things that they like and DO have meaning for.

To collect things I don't have meaning for is tricky.

Then there's the miniature museum. This will be hard because I have so many small things it will be hard to choose what to put in a small box. But as seen I have plenty of boxes to choose from.

With this collection of boxes on the table I called Owen over and had him pick a box for his Miniature Museum and Case of Curiosities. He chose these two boxes. The unpainted wooden one and the old Victorian one.

I decided on the wooden sliding lid with a moon box and the wicker basket box. In fact I picked up the wicker basket box at a thrift shop a couple weeks ago not having seen exploration #9, but knew I would use it the moment I read this exploration.

There is an example picture of a miniature museum in the Explorer book. I like this picture it is intruding and a want to pick up all the little things in the picture. I want to be able to smell and touch and taste the things in this picture.

I sat for awhile thinking about how and where I would begin. I made a list in my mind of all the little tiny things I could put in my museum.

Then my mind wandered to the Case of Curiosities. What would I put in that? What do I have that I don't have meaning for or I don't understand.

What kept on coming to mind was a strange image. One that I really don't understand why I would think of it, so I guess that's a good thing. The image that came to mind was one of this little doll.

My dad gave me this doll when he came back from a band tour in Europe with my two older sisters. Sometimes I wear my hair like this girl. She has a very calm and self possessed expression on her face.

Did I chose to add this doll because the colours go well with the inside of the box?

I'm not sure what it is about this doll or the memories it invokes. I don't understand them or have meaning for them.

Perhaps it's the fact that I've kept this doll well into my 30's and while I no longer play with or am drawn to dolls I could never give it away.


I was a teenager when my dad gave me this doll, I'd outgrown dolls then too. But I cherished it. Loved it and even then it created emotions in me that I didn't understand and still don't today.

In novels somethings things are charmed to hold memories or take the protagonist back in time. Somehow I think that if I clutched this doll hard enough it would reveal itself to be just such a doll.

There's ethereal magic about this doll that I can not grasp. So I put it in the Case.

The doll has been on a shelf in my living room for a long time. Next to it was, surprise surprise, a box.

 This box. 

Again another box that my dad gave me when I was little. This had been his box. In it contains treasures from his childhood. And I've always just kept it. I remember the first time I saw Amelie and she finds the old tin box behind the tile in her bathroom; that scene and all that follows reminds me of this box.

Inside the box are what's left of my dad's tin soldiers. Two nurses, two WWI men, who once had a stretcher between them. One British solider on the march, one with broken feet (usually carried in the now lost stretcher) and the soldier without a head.

Their paint is chipped, their faces gone. Yet when I hold them I feel like I did when I clutched rock salt in my hands. Their tinny smell as at the metal warms stays on my hands long after I put them away.

I wish that they were charmed and could take me back to visit my dad's childhood.

Also in the box are these plastic clowns. I think they were on a birthday cake once? I vaguely remember someone telling me that. Though I don't know whose cake or when that was.

These are, btw, the only clowns I am not terrified of. They are nice clowns and will not try to eat my face in my sleep, unlike every other clown on the planet.

There are a few other treasures in this box. A few little animals I know I put in there, but why I now don't recall. There was also this old Mexican coin, which has been added to that - where the heck did these coins come from? - collection. More anon.

 So begins the collection for the Case of Curiosities. This will be an on going project, building as I find things that I want to add. In the meantime it is comforting to hold these things I saved from being forgotten and remember them again.





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