Divine Intervention

She’s late. And out of breath. She’s taken the stairs up to her fourth-floor office to make it seem as though she stopped in at accounting on the floor below - multitasking. Ms. Tanner, the office manager, hates it when anyone is late, especially her, Ms. Tanner’s assistant.

When she walks into the corner closet that passes for her office, the hideous 90’s phone on her desk assaults her with a red frenetic flicker that would give any epileptic a seizure. Her stomach tightens.

“It’s starting,” she sighs.

She checks the phone messages before even settling at her desk, slumping her coat and bag on the chair while fumbling for a pen and notepad. It’s only after she’s notated all of Ms. Tanner’s (who’s “running a bit late”) instructions for the morning that she notices a package precariously resting on the corner of her desk, opposite the phone.

Feeling more relaxed knowing that her boss won’t be in until eleven, she takes more time than usual to settle into the day. Once her coat and bag are where she likes them to be and she’s brought her morning Earl Gray back to her desk, she reviews her calendar for the week and then considers the package more intently.

It seems to have been set on her desk in a hurry, not all of it is resting on the desk. There’s nothing written on the package to indicate that it’s even meant for her. It’s meticulously wrapped in brown paper and held together with a white ribbon that is neatly bowed a top a small matching brown envelope that she’s only just noticed. The package is about ten inches square and much lighter than she anticipates when she lifts it.

Carefully loosening the bow, in case the package is not meant for her and she must rewrap it, she first opens the envelope which, thankfully, is not sealed. As a matter of fact, there’s not even any tape on the package; the precisely folded brown paper is held in place soley with the ribbon.

She pulls out a simple ivory embossed card and reads, “Seven Boxes, Seven Weeks” written in beautifully florid calligraphy.

“Intriguing.”

When she removes the paper from the package, a beautiful ox blood red-colored box is revealed. She slowly lifts its lid in curious anticipation, unaware that she is holding her breath. Inside is another mystery, a smaller rich, orange-colored box.

“Nesting boxes! How delightful!” She feels like her child self on her birthday.

She gently lifts out the second box and finds another card like the one in the envelope at the bottom of the red box. Two words are written on it in the same calligraphy: “Eternal Possibility.”

“Possibly meant for me, possibly not,” she muses.

Jarred back to reality by an email ping she sets the boxes aside and starts in on Ms. Tanner’s list along with her routine tasks. When Ms. Tanner does arrive, she and her co-workers metaphorically grab onto their desks like animals clinging to trees during a hurricane, reeling with each barked command and wondering when the storm will pass. At least she has a room with a door for some respite. It’s the others in cubicles who she feels for. They always take the sharpest lashes from the erratic winds.

The office closes at four but she rarely leaves before five, needing time to decompress before heading home to her two cats. She’d thought that a job in arts administration would be a perfect fit while she worked on her second poetry collection after grad school, but this is a government office with more bureaucrats than artists making decisions. As she pushes her chair under her desk – she likes order – she sees the red and orange boxes set behind her desk on the windowsill.

“Eternal Possibility,” she remembers while closing the door. “There are certainly far more possibilities to contemplate when the office is still.”

She decides to walk the ten blocks home rather than wait for the bus. It’s a beautiful spring evening and walking invigorates her imagination before she settles down to write after dinner. She spontaneously takes the more scenic route home, through the provincial legislature grounds, enjoying the peaceful, tree lined walkways and newly planted flower beds.

By Friday she’s walked home every evening this week, each walk a delightful meander down unfamiliar paths discovering new gardens and other city treasures she hadn’t know existed. Her cats have begrudgingly accepted her later arrivals home but do remind her she’s late with snarky stares that only cats can give. Their supper is meant to be served at 5:30, not 6:00. She hardly notices their perturbance, engrossed with her thoughts when she arrives and eager to put pen to paper. Her writing took an unexpected turn that she’s excited to explore. She’s been leaving the office closer to the four o’clock exodus of her colleagues all week and is enjoying her evening meanders immensely.

After a productive weekend of writing and spring cleaning, she’s surprised to find herself anxious to get to work. Her home is her sanctuary and she is usually reluctant to leave on Mondays. She’s in her office fifteen minutes early, only realizing when she entered that she’s excited to open a new box today!

She lifts the orange lid as tentatively as she did the red and finds a nice warm yellow box inside which she gingerly lifts to find the anticipated card, “Give What You Seek.”

“Soph, I’m glad you’re here. Be a love and bring me my coffee.” The magic moment has vanished. Ms. Tanner never says “please” or “thank you” and she’s given up reminding her that she prefers to be called Sophia.

She’s learned to never hesitate in doing what Ms. Tanner asks for; the long, exasperated sighs of dismay if she does aren’t worth the aggravation. As she sets the coffee on her ladyship’s desk – two sugars, one cream – she notices Ms. Tanner wincing as she slowly eases onto her chair. “Are you alright?” she asks automatically, surprising herself that she’s genuinely concerned.

“Sciatica. Nothing I can’t handle.”

Sophia notices that she’s wearing black orthotics fastened with Velcro and pants. Ms. Tanner always wears a dress and heels, always!

“I’ll be working at my desk most of the day and calling you rather than sticking my nose in your little room when I need you,” she states. “That’s all for now. Close the door on your way out.”

By lunchtime, Sophia has had twenty-six calls from Ms. Tanner, all of them terse and demanding. She decides to leave the office for lunch rather than eat at her desk like she usually does and leaves a phone message stating she will be away until one pm. She slips down the building stairs, not sure why she’s feeling guilty about taking an actual lunch break, and heads to the park benches a half block away. The warm sun is a soothing companion and massages her temperament back to a warm glow before she returns to the office. She decides to take the elevator up so walks around to the front entry. On impulse she slips into the little flower shop on the corner and gets herself a small arrangement to brighten her desk.

The phone’s incessant red flash greets her return with hostility. She places the small round glass vase on the desk and sits, taking a deep breath before getting back at it. Three messages in the last five minutes, all from Ms. Tanner, each more abrasive than the last. “I thought you’d be back by now. I need you to get me some painkillers, now!”

She looks at her beautiful arrangement, cradles it in her hands and walks to Ms. Tanner’s office where she places it on the desk without a word before asking her what pills to get. Ms. Tanner ignores the flowers and thrusts cash and instructions at Sophia, clearly agitated.

By Wednesday, Ms. Tanner is working from home and everyone in the office is happier than Sophia who is fielding about 40 calls a day from her. “Take a breath lady,” she fumes to herself after one particularly grating call. Ostensibly, Sophia runs the office when Ms. Tanner is away; everyone knows it and comes to her with concerns when they arise. Sophia is comfortable with the added responsibility and actually enjoys the extra pressure it puts on her. She has a natural talent for putting people at ease and creating a positive work environment. In fact, on Friday, everyone in the office stops by her office to wish her a pleasant weekend as they leave.

The next Monday, Sophia is informed that Ms. Tanner will be taking an extended leave for health reasons. The Executive Director asks if she will assume the role of office manager until further notice, which she agrees to. He suggests she move into Ms. Tanner’s office right away, which she does. She’s surprised to see that Ms. Tanner’s personal belongings have already been removed from the room. “She must have been in on the weekend,” she surmises, noticing that the floral arrangement she’d given her is still on the desk.

It’s only after Sophia has brought her belongings to her new space and arranged things to suit her workflow that she pauses to read her eagerly anticipated Monday Message. She’s placed the nesting boxes on the credenza behind her, creating an energetic reminder of their wisdom while she works.

She lifts a moss green box from the mustard yellow one and finds the third embossed card, “Make Wise Choices”.

“I hope this week has started with one,” she whispers, prayerlike.

Her apprehensions are quickly laid to rest. She breezed through the first week in her new role nicely. Relishing her spacious and silent - but not for long – office this new Monday, she contemplates last week’s message from what she’s come to call her Wise Nest of Boxes. It seems she made a lot of choices last week, all instinctive and, so far, none have met resistance. When she takes the light blue box from the green, the message greeting her is “Follow Your Heart”.

Working contentedly on a poem later in the week, cats snoozing comfortably in the armchair across from hers, it suddenly strikes her that she has not been following her heart in what matters to her most – writing. When she’s searching for the perfect word for a poetic phrase, time stands still. When she makes effortless decisions at the office, time is measured, regardless of how the day unfolds.

The fourth message is still lingering with her when she reveals the fifth at the bottom of the blue box, “Attention / Intention”. These words stay in her subconscious with the others and have even presented themselves in her dreams. Writing poetry gives her “Eternal Possibility” whereas administrative responsibilities lead to a path of ever diminishing circles. “My attention is scattered when I work,” she realizes, “not at all intentional like when I write. My heart is here, not there.”

Today, the seventh and final Monday of her Nesting Wisdom, the Executive Director has informed her that Ms. Tanner will not be returning. Her position will be filled through usual protocol meaning Sophia will have to formally apply for the job like everyone else.

“Do I want to?” she asks herself. She’s genuinely unsure.

Last week’s message, the sixth at the bottom of the deep purple box, was “Detachment & Uncertainly” which seems highly fitting right now.

She’s saved the seventh message, folded inside the final violet box, for the end of the day. “How Will You Serve?” echoes the question she has been asking herself all day.

“How will I serve?” becomes her mantra for the night.

Two Monday's later, before the office is buzzing with activity, the night custodian smiles when she sees that Sophia's belongings are no longer in the manager's office. "She understood the gift," she smiles upward.