The Glass Powder Box

The glass powder box currently contains French clay used to make a mask for the face. This container is three inches in diameter with a somewhat opaque top, like frosted glass. The texture is coarser than smooth translucent glass. There is a ½ inch scallop curling around the edge of the top, opaque on top and smooth and translucent on the bottom. The box itself is made up of rises and valleys with the rises being smooth and translucent. Looking carefully at the rises, one sees a chain of swans appearing to be swimming in the opaque glass water. The swans are clear glass and smooth to the touch. At first glance, the swans look like partial question marks, no period at the bottom. The glass tastes bitter from the soap remnants on my hands when I pick up the top. It is cool to the touch and without fragrance.

The clay inside this box is a pale green which gives the box a slight tint of gray green. The clay smells like earth and dried clay. It is silky to the touch and tastes bland.

On the bottom of the box, two small cork pads remain. One is missing. The cork provides protection against scratching surfaces on which the box sits. It is the kind of box that conjures up sterling silver dresser sets, crystal perfume bottles and mahogany furniture.

The glass powder box evokes memories of my cousin and I playing with our grandmother’s face powder, also kept in a similar container. My grandmother’s powder box had a tinge of pink from her face powder stored inside. Besides her powder, my grandmother’s box held a large, to two small girls, powder puff, soft and fluffy. In my mind’s eye, I see tiny spots of powder, not yet smoothed out, on her mahogany dresser. That always happened later when we tried to cover our tracks. We weren’t allowed in the powder. We were allowed, however, to get into the other glass box that contained hairpins and bobby pins. My cousin liked to give me new hair styles. With my medium length, straight hair, that meant changing the part or pulling the top and sides back while the back remained “long” and straight. Sometimes we had rubber bands and ribbons with which to work. After our hair was beautiful, sometimes with toilet paper streamers, we got into the powder and the closet.

I would wear my grandmother’s red high heels while my cousin would snag the minks to wear around her neck. Then we were ready for our fashion show.

I miss my cousin who died at forty-five from lung cancer.