p.o. box

our post office box is on the upper row, a small one just big enough for letters, the weekly shopper and a few seed catalogs. once in a while there's a yellow card inside that sends me to the front counter for a package. now, there's no telling what might arrive. peeps. taco doritos. bits of electrical things the sweetie will make into a guitar pedal. but a week or so back a steam engine came in the mail.

let me explain. the sweetie has family he doesn't get to see often enough. folks in texas, some way down near the border and others over around san antonio. a few times we've gone on whirlwind tours of both versions of texas and we stay a night with one family member, then another. two of these are an uncle and aunt of the sweetie. on my first visit i could tell these were folks i wanted to get to know.

it turns out this uncle has quite a few things in common with my own dad, which means he has quite a few things in common with me. he showed us a tiny steam engine and then a few other little contraptions. it took me a bit of time to really get that he'd made them. beautiful things with pipes and wheels and magical bits of motion. and you know me. i drooled. now, the sweetie drooled, too, but i'm a little more dramatic about things. i can fall right smack in love with something like a tiny working steam engine in a second. not everyone sees things the way i do, but the sweetie's uncle, as i've said, has a few things in common with me.

then a while back this same uncle mentions he'd like to send this engine on up to us. can you imagine anyone ever saying no to something like that? those are the folks who say no to extra hot fudge on a sundae. not me. i say send that thing right on up, thank you. and he does. and now i am at the counter, knowing full well the box the postal woman is incredibly slow in handing over is full of steam engine. i take the box out to the car and rip open the tape as the sweetie turns us around and toward breakfast. i pull it out of the box as we pull into the parking lot. it is beautiful. it is perfect. there is a little pipe taped down to the base with a valve handle in the middle. the smallest wrench i've ever seen is attached with a twist tie to the wheel.

i am so captivated by this wrench i forget a minute about the engine. it has to be handmade. i know the sweetie's uncle well enough by now to figure he might have made it himself just for this engine (turns out he did) and i am thinking about what size jump ring i'll need to fit through the tiny hole at the end so i can string it on a cord and wear it as a necklace. because nobody else in the world will have a necklace that is a tiny wrench that also really works on a steam engine. and that's how i like things. but the sweetie wants to see the engine. i untape the pipe with the valve and fit it onto the machine. the sweetie starts talking about what to do to get it running. he talks about a steam compressor. we will get ourselves a steam compressor. i have no idea what a steam compressor looks like but i am glad we will have one. i think about what i can run off this little machine. a train. a music box. the dog.

we go in for breakfast and the engine stays in the car. i think about how it looks like a john deere tractor had a baby. i think about the tiny faucet knob on the pipe that controls the steam. i think about the yellow wheel spinning and about all those steam engines at the mill we visit. i wonder what it will sound like with the steam pouring through it.