Packaging

When we were in Philadelphia, we used to get humongous packages from my mother-in-law, gargantuan Pandora's boxes wrapped in brown paper and tied with string (I know, but they really were tied up with string), things that held the secrets of the universe. Opening them was like Christmas morning no matter when it was - they had chocolate bars and chocolate cookies, Turkish delight and gummy candies, magazines, clothes, coffees, soaps, shampoos, lotions, and always a sweet note tucked into it all greeting us both and offering a few words about daily life, this or that, who was doing what.

Now it's my mother's turn to send us things, and her packages are smaller, slivers that usually fit in our mailbox, padded envelopes or tiny boxes that hold a book or some magazines, newspaper clippings from my hometown, little explanatory notes written on scrap paper. She is quieter with her packages, but more frequent - just about once a week, sometimes twice, I open the mailbox to that hopeful little yellow envelope. She always slides our address in, too, printed neatly on an index card, just to make sure that there is no mistake, that it will reach us. As if upon seeing the envelope shredded and the contents spilled everywhere, some helpful stranger would tie up the lot with a rubber band, card on top, and carefully see it to our door. I love these little packages, I love their eccentricities (an article from the newspaper about someone I might have known in second grade, an Alumni magazine from my alma mater), and their understated, home-grown tone.

Western Europe has, somewhere in the last ten years, been saturated with just about anything an American could want. I worried that there wouldn't be good peanut butter, but I've found some of the best here, faithfully next to the chocolate and Speculoos spread. Even Mexican food, while a bit different Belgian style, is possible. Cereal choices are abundant. My mother asks me sometimes what she should send, and then I sit and wrack my brain. An American measuring cup. That's handy. I once had her send a big vat of stove-top popcorn. That I haven't found. Boxes of couscous. These things don't seem to be at any grocery store I've been to. Then again, perhaps it's no accident that I've been looking in all the wrong places. She has a collection, I know, of little, personal things to send. All she needs is that last item, a single request for something compact and package-able, and it's on its way.