Some of you may not know the back story, and none of you are going to read this, but for self-gratification, I'm going to type it out for you/me. I was cleaning my room the other day, and when picking up something, had an initial, almost knee-jerk, reaction to stick it in a Halloween cauldron I keep in the corner of computer shelf. It seems that it had collected quite a bit of items inside, since it was heavy, so I decided to pick it up and check it out, expecting to find garbage and things of the like. Instead, I was hit with a flurry of emotions that left me speechless.
Although it seems ordinary or unimportant to most, when something in my history is a positive thing, I like to keep track or a hold of it. Good memories aren't something in which I have many of, and holding them close is important to me, simply because if I don't, I'd probably implode. For the sake of doing things, I'm going to list the things inside this pot of time, for both sentimental purposes, and in case there's ever a court case for my sanity, I easily have documented evidence towards a psychiatric issue or two.
- Dean Guitar Tag. In case a few of you don't know, I play guitar.. often. And I have three guitars overall: An Electric, A refurbished Acoustic, and my baby, the Dean Electric/Acoustic. This was the first guitar I brought into my possession that made me feel "real"... that made me feel like I was progressing musically and literally in status. It was a fairly expensive, and one of the greatest gifts I'd ever gotten from a parent. It wasn't the colour we were supposed to receive, but looking at it in the light, seeing it shine and glisten as I play it... I don't think I could imagine it any other way. It sounds beautiful, and it's easy to record with using my baby M-Audio recorder. So, I keep the tag for it to always remember opening it that day; clipping the tag off of the guitar neck, and flipping through the mini-pages, seeing legendary musicians like Dave Mustaine rocking out to a Dean guitar. And forever in that moment, asides the squealing voice and Ginger appearance, I imposed myself in that picture, rocking out on a Dean guitar, immortalized forever in rock history.
- Guitar Slide. This one's not as emotionally heavy as the rest, but it's quite the reminder of who I expected to be now four years ago. A guitar slide is an item worn on your finger of your left hand that allows you to create a sliding sound up and down your guitar. I remember wanting one because it seemed essential when I got my Electric guitar. I tried it out five times perhaps, total, and tossed it aside because I couldn't make it "work". Looking at it now makes me want to try failing with it all these years later; but it's nice to know it's always there for when I feel like picking it up one more time.
- Guitar Capo. There seems to be a guitar pattern here, but these are the last ones, I swear. A guitar capo is a device you attach to a guitar neck to shift the sound of the guitar higher in sound. My dad had a capo, and I loved the sound of higher sounds, as opposed to his murky, sad sounding country songs. When he refused to teach me how, and I'd finally learned the basic guitar chords, the first thing I knew I wanted was a capo. Eventually, I got one for myself, and maintained infinite happiness. Now in my cauldron, I have both my capo, and Jimbo McGovern's... not because they're both mine, but as a reminder. For my capo, it's a reminder of how one thing in addition to another can create a completely new output; one more spectacular than the first... and as for Jimbo's: a reminder that I should probably return this to him at one point or another.
- Fox Keychain. Finally, something non-guitar related. This one's more fun, yet slightly more personal than the other things mentioned abouve. A family trip we always used to take as the Vaux's was one to Fantasy Island. Fantasy Island is like a fun poverty paradise: It's Darien Lake or Cedar Point... minus a good amount of money, and a good amount of fun, but I digress. Within Fantasy Island, when you're done having fun and such, you can then pay more attention to the stores and food kiosks rigged to lose you a lot of money in a short distance. In one of the shoppes, you can purchase candies, fudge, cowboy stuff, and in a little corner, Keychains. Like most keychains, they had little designs, and on the bottom: the names of people. The design for these particular keychains were animals: pigs, elephants, donkeys, birds. My grandmother (as we call her, Nan) decided to buy us all a little trinket from the store, and we each got our name as a keychain. Mine had a fox on it, which is more awesome than most would take it for, since it rhymes with my last name. In addition, the fox on the Stephen keychain's probably the cutest thing ever. Plus, since it came from my nan, it's all that more special.
- Blue Eyes Toon Dragon. This really shows how mindless I was as a child, and more than likely just furthers ones opinion of me as a lifeless loser, but I loved Yu-Gi-Oh! as a child. My teens were dominated by the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, video games, television show, toys, everything. And once you start really getting into something, if you can make an emotional connection to an aspect of it somehow, you will. But, because of my crappy childhood with the bad parenting and emotional neglect, I didn't familiarize myself with the hero, or comic-relief characters, but instead with the nonchalant antagonist of the series: Maximillion Pegasus. He was an avid artist, creative genius, and although he was ruthless in all in which he wanted to obtain, he did it with a pride and dignity of a thousand men. He was so positive and confident, I loved that, but also, he was maniacally playful. He was one of the most terrifying characters in the show, but he battled with cartoonish looking monsters, completely against character. I loved that, and because of which, my favorite and most prized Yu-Gi-Oh! card isn't the one that's worth the most, but instead's the one I love the most: The Blue Eyes Toon Dragon. The Blue Eyes White Dragon was one of the most strong cards in the original Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, everyone wanted to have one, and to use it for their own game. Then, I obtained the Pegasus deck, and within it was the Blue Eyes Toon Dragon, a cartoony looking take on the original feared monster of origin. That balance of strength and non-seriousness... I love it.
- The Note. I've gotten plenty of notes in my life, not always being the tubby flake you all know today, but there's one that says the least, but means the most. My final year of high school was filled with many ups and downs, mostly downs, but in all reality, when there was nothing else to keep me going; there was at least one. I'd taken an interest in a female that year that, no matter what I did as an advancement, would maintain her distance. As frustrating as that was, I hardly minded, since feelings are about more than indulgence and showing off to other people. But one of the first full conversations we had (if there was one), I introduced myself as a self-afflicted narcissus. And one day while reading in her English class, she came across and old poem called Narcissus and Echo: a story about a girl inflicted with the curse to only repeat what the person before them said, and a man, who only loves himself. In the end of the story, they both die alone, and ironically enough, this story attributed onto us. It was done because she said she'd never be able to fall for me or be good enough, and I'll always long for the love of the one who can never love back... so she became the Echo to my Narcissus. This isn't a happy story, I suppose, but the little note given to me by her, that simply says "Narcissus + Echo" on a little post-it note... will always remind me of the times where it seemed like all my persistence payed off, even if I seldom look back to these times in my memory anymore.
- Patches. Not like, nicotine patches or anything, but Jacket/Coat patches. One of them says "Peace", and the other "Love". I went through a pseudo-hard rock stage in my life, and one of my pieces of attire was a jean vest with patches on it. It's not truly a special thing like the previous things on the list, but still, they're pretty awesome to me. They've long since fallen off of the jacket, but now reside in the little cauldron to the corner of my computer desk. The words may be the most important part of the patches... "Love" and "Peace"... what two things could one possibly want more in life? What two things are more important, or could be weighed more than love and peace. All you need is love, and everyone should give peace a chance... at least, that's all I'm saying~
- Smiley face Ring. This one... sucks. A girl I know from out of town, Ashley Agnew, and I talk on and off and on and off and on and off, because of all the issues that seem to pop up within our friendship, and my incredibly short fuse and tolerance level to childishness. She's about three or four years younger than I am, so the maturity level is a factor between us, regardless of how well mannered she is. She's not the backstory, but she is the reason it's down here, away from where it was. It's a little ring I found when demolishing a sink in the downstairs bathroom years back. It was just chillin' there, in the corner of where the sink once sat, so I grabbed it and immediately claimed it was the greatest thing ever. It's literally a metal band, with a metal smiley face on the top: amazing. I was going to give it to Ashley as a sign of our seemingly recurring persistence at friendship, but before I could send it, our friendship crumbled again. Irony: 'tis a bitch.
- Muten Roshi. One time out shopping at a random grocery or convenience store; Walmart or Big Lots perhaps, they had these little Capsule machines. Capsule machines aren't nearly as awesome or useful in America as they are in Japan, so when you see an awesome one, you should go for it, or it may be outsourced to India. But one day we were out in the store, and on the way out, was a Dragonball Z capsule machine. I immediately demanded 50 cents so I could try to get an awesome character. I turned the notch, and to my surprise, Master Roshi: Turtle Hermit. As one of my favorite characters, it was pretty awesome to have gotten him by chance like that, so he became my good luck charm. I screwed a keychain into his head, and he spent his time hanging from my belt loops. I'm not sure if it actually caused good luck, but with Roshi around, I could at least *think* things were going better because of him.
- Heart-shaped Rock. I'd initially left this out when I posted, I'm assuming out of a sense of fear of some sort. I go hiking at my father's house whenever I can. It's right across the street, there are a few good trails, and a creek for me to occasionally put the canoe in and sail away into a peaceful few moments. One day while out hiking, they'd laid new rocks on one of the paths to make it more accessible, and while I was taking pictures, I bent over to see that one of the rocks were shaped like a heart. Almost perfectly this thing looked like a heart. So I took a picture of it, and decided to take it home. On a more indirect level, I'd held onto the rock for a particular someone I wish to give it to, but am too cautious of the implied result of the giving to do so already. Perhaps someday she'll get my rock-hard heart, but until the implications fade away in my mind, it'll remain mine, in the cauldron.
Well, that's all that's really in my Cauldron, aside from plastic scraps and many 9-Volt batteries from old electrical products and keyboards and such. All of these things must mean something to me, or else I wouldn't be stocking them for the Nuclear winter. Goodbye friends, I'll be seeing you, even if it's in another light~
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