Birthday Time Capsule

Our generation, born in the late seventies, was certain we could become astronauts to fly to the moon or maybe just around our city wearing a jet packs. Or perhaps we'd have to find a way to survive in a post-nuclear bomb nightmare from Miklowitz's After the Bomb or the Republic of Gilead from Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. We were preparing for the future and it was a varied vision.

I'm hoping our son's future, real and imagined, is more consistently optimistic and full of opportunities. To mark his first year of life and help him see where he started, we're collecting items for a time capsule that we'll open when he's in high school. What should we put in it?

We want to commemorate both what happened in his life and in the world. Perhaps we'll include one of his favorite rice crackers, so he can taste the quickly dissolving, airy (expired) cracker later. We'll probably add a physical newspaper and include a tiny onesie or two and a toy he's outgrown (and I haven't given away or sold.)

There are some things that would be fun to include, but we're not burying (or storing in a closet): iPhone, Apple Time Capsule, or any other technology that will surely be outdated years before we open the capsule.

We'd love to include a video or two of him, but perhaps the DVD/thumb drive/file will be unreadable by then (uh oh, how should we store everything we have?) Perhaps we'll print out some photographs, in addition to the thousands we have stored on our computer.

Would you share your ideas below? If you'd like to contribute something, email me for our address: chloemiller(at)gmail(dot)com.