The Potions

I inherited my grandfather’s wooden spice rack with the latticed doors and the stoppered glass bottles inside. Instead of dried herbs, I filled them with poignant trinkets, added a label, and created what a friend once called “potions.” Some of them included:

Cessation (a dried rose)

Anxiety (a collection of pins and needles)

Luck (a heap of pennies)

Instant Fix (a Band-Aid)

Peace of Mind (worry dolls)

Godliness
(a moisty towelette, although it was in there for so long I can no longer attest to its moistiness)

Pixie Dust
(pale pink glitter I’d coerced my parents into buying for me when I was a kid and never found a more suitable use for; it was too good and too beautiful for just any old craft!)

Randomness (truly self-explanatory)

I also had a bottle labeled “The Message,” and on the inside was a curled piece of paper (deliberately browned for aged look!) belted with a small piece of twine (for some lost-at-sea authenticity!). I’d long since forgotten what I’d written on the paper, or even if I had written anything at all.

During an effort to declutter before I moved across the country, I decided to repurpose a couple of the bottles: Pirate Treasure (a rainbow slew of acrylic rhinestones), EVIL (a child-sized Playmobil devil), and The Message. (It wasn’t even that long ago and yet I have no idea what I wound up doing with those three; those few weeks are now a messy, hurried rush of unaccounted time.)

I opened The Message, feeling the paper I’d last touched more than ten years ago and wondering what super secret I’d written then.

It said:

# # #

P.S. All the remaining potions found good homes with good friends who attended our going-away gathering, where we played Picture Down the Lane!

P.P.S. Wouldn’t “The Potions” be a great band name?? Wait, apparently this is already a thing, but the upside is that I guess that makes me right. Anyway, follow HappiMess Media on Twitter for more band name inspiration as it springs to mind, as well as other this and that!

—

Please leave a comment and share this content with your friends on social media—
this helps ensure the continuation of the content you love!