Before me I have a jewelry box, about 12.5” long and 10.3” inches wide. With measurements it can be hard to envision, but this is no average-sized jewelry box. Next to a box of cereal or a bottle of dish soap, the box looks abnormally large – even though the cereal box is slightly taller. This is a jewelry box with some heft! There is a thin layer of dust atop the box and on the edges of the bottom molding. The brown wooden jewelry box is worn, small scratches found on nearly every individual surface, even smaller chips on the corners. On the left-hand side of the jewelry box, there are five small drawers, each about 4” wide and 1.5” deep. The first drawer has a foam ring-holder that feels unpleasant when my fingernails make their way across the surface.

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The drawers have decorative handles, which probably sparkled and shined when the jewelry box was new. Now the handles have lost their color – they may have been gold-plated or a sparkling silver at one point, but now they are a dull gray with specks of black. Each drawer has a small, rectangular outline painted on its front in a faded gold, about 3.3” in diameter. These rectangular accents have inverted corners, giving the design a more refined look. On some of the drawers the paint has not lifted at all; while on others, the paint has begun to wear away, chipped and stripped. On the right-hand side of the jewelry box there are two compartments, the first a door about 9” long. The door has the same rectangular accent around its edges, and within that accent there is a plastic window into the compartment. This plastic window has another muted gold design, which upon investigation is painted on the inside of the plastic. The design feels rough against my fingertips. This compartment is meant for necklaces and chains and has a small mirror at the very back of it. The box is too cluttered to see myself clearly.

The second compartment on the right-hand side of the jewelry box is what makes this box more than just a jewelry box, and more like a memory box. Before I can tell you more about this sixth drawer, I must describe the back of the box. The back of the jewelry box has a small, shiny sticker that says, “Quality Products Designed for Jay, Jay Import Co. Inc. MADE IN TAIWAN.” On this same, plain surface, there is a small crank or “winder” that one might find on a music box. There are two visible screws underneath this crank. I turn it, wondering if it still works… to my surprise, it does (though it did give me some resistance at first)! That sixth drawer? When opened, it plays a beautiful lullaby – one that I rediscovered in August, played on an instrument called a Kalimba, and immediately recognized but could not place. This jewelry box doubles as a music box, one that I loved so dearly during my adolescence that you can see it was opened often – the drawer does not fit perfectly within its mold any longer, being slightly crooked when closed.

This jewelry box has not been used by me since I was in high school, at least 6 or more years ago, and has since been in my younger sister’s closet. However, this is a box with history, filled with memories of a different time in my life. Before me, my mother owned this box, a gift from her mother – my grandmother, Rocio. A tiny sticker of my preschool photograph adorns the window on the right-hand side of the box. Underneath that sticker is a sticker of Santa Claus I surely placed there – and later tried, but failed, to peel off. There seems to have been another sticker underneath that one which was successfully peeled off, at least to the point where you can no longer see the image. Opening each drawer one-by-one, I was taken back in time. I found a crisp, bright $2 bill in the first drawer – this is a lucky $2 bill I received from my stepfather’s coworker when I was barely a teenager, maybe 12. In the second drawer, I found a pair of earrings I wore to my junior prom. The third drawer held rubber bracelets from my Twilight days – “vampire girl” written across one. The next drawer held a silver jewelry box with my name written on it in my mother’s handwriting. Inside that box I found a small, gold pin that says “Mother” and underneath it has a heart with the initials “M.V.” engraved on it. I cannot easily recall knowing anybody with those initials.

The fifth drawer on the left-hand side held two student IDs – one from eighth grade and another from tenth grade – a pride ribbon pin which I wore on my gown during my high school graduation, and several gold charms that can be put on a necklace. In the sixth drawer I found a dog tag which belonged to a close friend, given to me in middle school, and the tag for a mood bracelet. My necklace compartment holds a pearl necklace, a necklace made by an ex-boyfriend, and a carved-wooden turtle necklace I bought at Oktoberfest in Bear Mountain in 2013. Interestingly enough, I had been thinking fondly about that exact necklace last week, wondering where it had gone.