The mysterious small package

Dear reader,

the other day I watched an episode of "Sherlock" again in which Sherlock Holmes gets a small envelope. "We've X-rayed it. It's not booby-trapped", explains Inspector Lestrade. "How reassuring", comments Sherlock Holmes dry and takes the envelope.

That reminded me again of an experience shortly before Christmas. I was at my dad's and had just brought him the post from the mail box up to the kitchen. Among them he had received a small package. I was curious and asked, if I should open it. "No, better let me do it", he said and suddenly seemed very insecure. He didn't have a clue who had sent him the package. He didn't know the sender at all and even more important than the sender: what was in the small package?

My dad went to the knifes and took one. That way I was standing across from him at the other end of the table and I gave the package to him. Carefully he opened it with the knife, took out mostly newspaper and finally then... a couple of small sort of sticks out of dark wood.

Now I was the one looking insecure and stupid. I had to ask him what those sticks were. Small spoons for jam for example, he explained to me. I asked him, what he had expected to find in that package really, because he had been so insecure. "A bomb?", I asked him. But apparently at that moment then, that had actually been on his mind. Whatever the reason for sending him a bomb might have been. I remember thinking: even if it had been a bomb, whether I had opened it or not, most likely I would have been hurt either way, since we had been standing together quite close, even with the table between us.

That was the mysterious small package before Christmas. Suffice to say that my dad is still not quite used to getting small or larger packages from strangers. Until recently my mom had done stuff like that and my dad usually only buys from amazon mainly, which is known to everyone.

Until next blog,
sarah

Pain be gone!

Dear reader,

a couple of years ago I had a contact on the internet. One evening he wrote to me that he has had a headache. I wrote him that I know something with pain that might quite likely help him. He didn't have any pain anymore, but wanted to know anyway what I would have written to him to help. So I told him that I give pain a shape, something spiky and edgy and then turn it into something round and smooth, as I already explained in more detail in my Pain control post. He was very interested and fascinated by that. Then I didn't see him for a longer time. When he was online again after several weeks, he told me that he has had a skin rash. His hands had been red and must have hurt a lot. But he remembered what I have told him before and because of that his hands barely hurt him at all. He was absolutely delighted.


Sidney Rosen has a in his collection of Dr. Milton Erickson stories “My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Ericksona story called “Calluses”, in which Erickson helped a construction worker, who was in much pain and paralysed except for using his arms and in after a heavy accident. Erickson suggested to him to tell his family and friends to bring him comic books and to tell the nurse to get him paste and scissors. He was to create scrapbooks from the comics. And every time a fellow workman would land in hospital, he should send one of those book to him.


When I was little, I knew my aunt on my father's side always with a dog. These days she doesn't have a dog anymore. After the last one died, she decided against a new one, so she could travel a bit more freely. She does takes care of the dogs of neighbours regularly. In the newspaper my parents get there's always a Peanuts comic. I collected the ones with Snoopy and put them together to a thin scrapbook for my aunt for her birthday. An old lady doesn't necessarily read comic. But, as I wrote in a card I included, this wasn't a usual comic book. She called me then to tell me she reads a page or two every day and was very happy about it.


I can only recommend to everyone who wants to make a book like that too, to start collecting very early on. If that book should be finished at a certain date, like for a birthday or christmas. It takes time to have all the “right” comics together, possibly longer than you expect it to take. Even with thin books like I used them. Below you can see a really tiny book I was lucky enough to just have, which I filled with quotes for a friend of mine, also cut from the newspaper. Two pages inside as an example for you and the cover.

Until next blog,

sarah

Ericksonian birthday or christmas presents

Dear reader,

Sidney Rosen has in his book "My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson" one story ("Calluses"), which is about a construction worker, who had fallen and was left totally paralysed and in pain. He asked Erickson, what he could do. Erickson said, that there's not much he could do. Develop calluses on his pain nerves, so he wouldn't feel the pain so much. Erickson suggested to him to collect comics, jokes and funny sayings and make scrapbooks out of them, which he could give to fellow workmen when they were in the hospital. That's just what the man did.

That's just what I did last year for one of my aunts with a strenuously collected collection of comics with Snoopy from the Peanuts. My aunts had a dog for many decades. Not anymore, because it's a bit easier to travel without one. I asked my dad, if he believed she'd enjoy reading comics. He had doubts. After I told him what I had in mind, he believed she'd like it for sure. So I collected and glued a thin notebook full of those comics and wrote her a card saying basically, that my dad had told me she won't read comics. But this one here was a very special one. She called me later to say thank you and that she reads one or two pages every day.

Our daily newspaper has a quote on the front page, which relates to one of the bigger articles on the page. I collected some of them over the past months for another notebook, which I had stumbled upon in our flat some time ago. No one wanted that notebook anymore, but it was small and nice and read. My friend and colleague from work likes read and quotes. The notebook is just big enough for one quote on each page and the pages are perforated, so you could rip them out. So I spent the past days now sorting the quotes fitting in such a way that one on the front the one on the back of a page were in some way or another somewhat related to each other. Yesterday I went through them one final time and cut the quotes straight. I wrote down many of them for myself, so I'd have them, too. I was up until half past two in the morning yesterday. Time passed unnoticed. I had written in german and listened to Derren Brown in english reading his book. It must have been hypnosis. Apart from the fact that time had passed so quickly, I couldn't remember consciously either which quotes I had written down or what I had heard Derren Brown say even a short time later when I was in bed. Amnesia. Trance is a natural phenomena and I don't think about it much, that I hardly can remember consciously the quotes or the audio book. It had been fun and after all the book is finally ready before christmas. That's what's really important.

I want to give the reader a warning: such notebooks, even small thin ones, need time and if you don't already have a big collection of quotes, you should plan long ahead of time for such a present. I have taken my time with those two books for that reason. I had to. The newspaper only came once a day and I couldn't use every comic or quote in it. Planing period: at best months ahead.

Until next blog,

sarah