Sharpies

It was like cleaning out a junk drawer before a move. It was the last few boxes of our storage unit containing the remains of our marriage. But instead of rubber band balls and expired coupons, it contained fragments of my life that I could not part with or bring with me to China. Diaries. My grandmother’s China. My purple Doc Martins.

And there it was, underneath the other half of my bike lock.

The black leather cover of our wedding Bible.

I froze. Just what do I do with it?

I picked it up and leafed through the onion skin thin pages, surprised at the memories that jumped out. A picture of a friend, a letter from my mom. A program from a funeral for a baby, his little foot prints on front.

I flip through the pages again finding more surprises. A door tag from a hotel in Bangkok. A frayed tag from my dad’s navy days. I put the Bible down on a stack of boxes I was ready to haul to the dumpster.

I look at the date embossed in gold on the cover. 1999. My marriage was a thing of the past like floppy discs,Y2K emergency bunkers and Wow potato chips.

I had an Olestra moment. It was time to get going.

But throwing out a Bible? It would be bad luck like walking under a ladder or drinking tap water in China.

I hummed and hawed. Do I donate it to a shelter or give it to someone who needs it more than me?  I thought of a favorite Bible that I gave it to a down-and-out friend who was trying to kick her habit. The gold trim was worn off. Verses were highlighted like rainbows. She ended up using my Bible as a place to write the phone numbers of her drug dealers.

Don’t want to do that again.

I brought the Bible back to China as part of my hundred pounds of checked-in life, along with my chunk of cheddar cheese and Pepperidge Farm goldfish in a box that the TSA would slice apart.

I felt like a jet set bag lady schlepping my life in a luggage cart.

Thirteen time zones later, I arrive at my new apartment and make a hundred pound mountain of me in the center of the floor.

I pick up the Bible and leaf thru the pages again. I find something I never did before, a fan folded letter from my husband scribbled on a piece of legal paper. It was tucked in the Old Testament prophets.

Dear Dad,  I’ve been kind of a jerk to Ginger…

A few tears come out when I realize when it was written— closer to the date on the cover than the date flashing on my phone.

I returned the note to Nehemiah where I will never find it again.

I go back to the mound of my life spreading on the floor of my apartment. I dig out from a tangle of socks a package of Sharpies that a friend bought for me.

“I thought you might need these in China,” she said.

You’re damn right.

So every day as I watch the sun come up, I do what I should have done before. I open the Bible, grab a Sharpie and share my thoughts in technicolor: lamenting, celebrating, underlining and recharging and take in the distinct smell of something permanent.

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever. Psalm 100:5

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