When I was a kid, an important part of summer was the extra-hanging-out with The Cousins, especially the ones that lived about a mile away, easy distance by hike or by bike. And unlike school, where we were shuffled off into age-segregated groups, summer was a time to do away with those artificial lines. In the summer, The Youngers were sometimes allowed to hang with The Olders. It wasn’t Lord of the Flies, either – we had civilized wiener roasts or picnicked on white-bread sandwiches cut into neat triangles made by our auntie – and if somebody’s glasses got broken, we all commiserated. (Because we all wore glasses and knew dang well how much they cost.)

Usually, we stayed outside, because that was the best place to escape The Adults. But a sudden thunderstorm might send us into the barn or the playhouse, or even sometimes, the house. On one of these afternoons, with all of us crowded in a circle on my cousin Barb’s bed, she decided to show us The Shoebox. It was a pretty ordinary shoebox. And the shoes that once lived there had moved on. Inside, in a reverse chronological pile from the top down, were all the things she had saved in her life thus far, the Things She Decided Were Worth Saving. I don’t remember exactly what was inside that box but I could venture to guess there were some newspaper clippings, a napkin or two from a wedding (remember when napkins were “engraved” with the couples’ name and date of the wedding?), probably some birthday cards, friends’ school photos, bottlecaps, badges and some letters, still tucked inside their envelopes with their time-stamp postmarks on the front.

I was completely enamored. Here was her entire life in a shoebox! Okay, maybe not really. But it felt so personal to me, her letting us see All Those Special Things, because she was showing us a little piece of herself, her memories, her dear ones. And I knew then that I needed to get my own shoebox.

Shoeboxes have long been repositories of such collections. Before my Shoebox Epiphany, I knew there already were other shoeboxes in our house. There was a box of unused greeting cards that I loved to look at, with some strange postcards at the bottom that never would be sent to anyone. There was the box with all the invitations from weddings past. There was probably a shoebox with old photos in it. Because shoeboxes, by their very neat size and construction and maybe their appealing color or design (or perhaps by the sheer price tag of the shoes you purchased) demand to be saved. So you might as well put them to work.

The shoebox is also a good limiter. Once the shoebox is full, well, you need to get rid of something. One of the first things I remember secreting to my shoebox was a cardboard french fry box shaped like a skunk (WHAT?) that came from a rare lunch out in The City. I kept it for a loooooooong time but eventually it was ousted from the shoebox. The shoebox is a flexible time capsule so, if you’re a Peruser or a Rememberer, you might find yourself naturally culling through the box every time you rifle its contents. Because food-stained skunk boxes eventually do lose their ketchup-colored patina.

Of course, you could also just add another shoebox.

There’s a few “shoeboxes” in my house now: some actual shoeboxes, some are dedicated dresser drawers, but mostly, I have saved things in scrapbook albums, including some of those things from my childhood shoebox. I sometimes wonder what to do with it all. But then, one of the kids or the girlfriends or a niece or nephew askes a question about our Good Old Days and we find ourselves, in a circle, around the Proverbial Shoebox.

I’ve saved too much, I have so many shoeboxes, I wonder what to do with it all sometimes. Except: it’s always fun to look back and remember a time when your whole life could fit into a shoebox.

Do you know a kid who needs a shoebox this summer? It’s a pretty simple do-it-yourself project. And, of course, no adults allowed.

A recent Instagram post about taking personal responsibility after life deals you a crappy hand reminded me of something I read a few years ago in a book about achieving Your Personal Potential: you can prevent pretty much any bad thing that happens to you. You got struck by lightning? What were you doing out in that storm wielding a key tied to a kite, Mr. Franklin? You got passed over for a promotion? Well, at least you kept up your social media accounts – albeit during work hours (oops). You almost peed your pants on the 2-hour trip from Vermilion to Edmonton? Maybe you shouldn’t have had that extra cup of coffee before you left home or you should have stopped in half-way Vegreville. Mmmhmm?

You see where I’m going with this? Poop happens (again, another kind of accident), but mostly it’s preventable if we just take the time to Play the Movie in our heads of What Could Happen Next. Or as my husband likes to say: “Be a Boy(Girl/Person) Scout!”

I am reminded every time I go in my garden shed to retrieve my pail and my dandelion digger of The Time I Got Locked In the Garden Shed. Even though this is a different shed, the memory – and what I learned – still reverberates. The shed door had a vertical bolt lock, the kind that’s often installed horizontally. You pulled it up and opened the door but sometimes the bolt part stayed in the pulled-up state. On more than one occasion, on a windy day, I witnessed the door slam shut and the bolt fall into place. But on all those times, I was outside the shed.

Until I wasn’t. One day, I went into the shed to quickly pick up my pail when the door quickly shut behind me. This is where I argue The Case For Carrying Your Cell Phone With You At All Times. I phoned whomever was in the house and was subsequently rescued, with only the minute-est amount of snickering or consideration of leaving me in the shed for awhile (Because: Boys) – mostly because all those people in the house knew who was making them supper that night and for most nights after that. But in the 45 seconds between the phone call and the rescue I frantically made a survival plan of sleeping wrapped up in a tarp with a bag of lawn seed for a pillow, that is until I had eaten all the grass seed, the only organic edible that was in the shed. And I also berated myself for not propping open the door to prevent such an accident. [I also commanded myself NOT TO THINK ABOUT THE SPIDERS.]

Since I didn’t prevent “the accident”, I needed to do the optimistic thing and Look For The Lesson. I am now highly suspicious of all garden sheds, which is why you will see me painstakingly prop open the door of my now-tiny little shed with two or three of the tires that reside within. And why I store some Clif bars and an old sleeping bag in there as well. (JK. But a Person Scout probably would give me a merit badge if I did do that.)

But then, sometimes there are such things as Happy Accidents. There was another scene involving this same shed when I was on the other side of the yard, perhaps even in the same summer that I got locked inside. The rule was that whoever cut the grass was supposed to take the rolling garbage can full of grass clippings and empty it into the green bin on our block, no matter how many times you had to do it and no matter how tired you were after cutting our half-acre of grass. But on this particular occasion, one of the grass-cutters in the family had failed to do that and had wheeled the bucket full of grass into the shed and left it there. For a few days. Or maybe a week.

Until Tim and Simon opened the door to get a basketball to shoot some hoops. And after getting accosted with the smell of rotting grass, they were then overwhelmed by hundreds of little white butterflies streaming out of the shed, out of that bin of smelly grass. The three of us witnessed a real-life Planet Earth moment, but no cameras were rolling because we never expected such a magical thing to happen. We stood there and watched as the butterflies slowly dispersed and drifted off into the sky like so many helium balloons, all looking to reach Their Own Personal Potential. But the cameras of our minds were rolling and we still talk about it some ten years later.

There are some accidents we certainly wish we could prevent, but then they (hopefully) teach us a valuable lesson to Be More Careful. And then there are some accidents we know yield some crazy Butterfly Effect that made us happy that we weren’t.