Cubby Holes

 

When I was little and I didn’t feel good, my mother would take me to a particular doctor. While I didn’t like going to see the doctor, a big cabinet sitting in his office with lots of small drawers would distract me. There were so many drawers. Little spaces for little things. Spaces to put things in. Hide things. Arrange things. Each had a label. I couldn’t read so I never knew what any of the labels said but it didn’t matter. My imagination took over. Once I reached a certain age, my doctor changed.

But my infatuation for such small spaces remained.

When I was going into the fourth grade, we moved to the country and playing in my grandfather’s barn with my cousins became a constant. By then, my grandfather had stopped farming. Gone were the cows and horses— and the chickens. Left behind were the small, three-sided nesting boxes where the chickens would lay their eggs. The boxes remained intact. Some still had a bit of hay and a few stray chicken feathers here and there. Those nesting boxes intrigued me when I’d pass by. I could almost hear the chickens cackling and clucking in those small, closed-in, three-sided spaces. It looked like an apartment house inside that old barn.

As I grew older, the card catalog at the library with its many small drawers and the boxes holding mail at the post office infatuated me.

But the most captivating of all the small, closed-in spaces I’ve encountered remains the cubby holes inside my father’s desk.

I always loved his desk. Probably just because it was his. The desk is now inside my home. And inside one of the cubby holes sits two unopened packages of Noma Blue Outdoor Christmas Bulbs. Four bulbs in each package. A red price tag remains on each.

Besides the price, the tags tell me my father bought the bulbs at a local hardware store.

I’ll never use them. I’ll never open them up. You see, my father loved Christmas. He loved blue Christmas lights. He was the one who meticulously placed the strings of Christmas lights on our Christmas trees over the years. He didn’t just string those lights. He took his time hiding any hint of the wires. All he ever wanted anyone to see were the beautiful, blue Christmas lights entwined about the branches.

My father would be happy those last two unopened packages of blue Christmas bulbs remain inside a cubby hole inside his desk. Right where he left them.

So many Christmases ago.