A song burst into my head the minute I saw two boxes on my front porch stamped “Handle with Care.” Lately, I’d started to understand why those words might matter.
That phrase led me back to 1988, to a song that began almost by accident. “Handle with Care” by the Traveling Wilburys took shape when George Harrison needed a quick B-side and found himself recording in Bob Dylan’s garage studio in Malibu. Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison joined in — not as a planned supergroup but as a collaboration that refused to stay small.
The band’s name came from an inside joke about mistakes they’d “bury in the mix.” They took it further by inventing alter egos — half-brothers with new names — setting ego aside so the music could come first.
Now here were those same words stamped across two oversized boxes by my front door. My new guardian lions had arrived just in time for spring. They’re the exact same model as their predecessors, which I’d bought a few years earlier and, thinking they’d hold up fine, left outside year-round.
They were outdoor statues. That was the whole point. Why fuss?
I left them out through snow, sleet, freezing rain, and whatever else New England felt like throwing at them. Their glossy gold finish had dulled to a flat, defeated gray. Still, they’d kept their shape. Someone snapped them up within minutes of my placing them on the sidewalk with a “Free” sign.
This time, I read the instructions. They were surprisingly specific. Bring statues inside during the winter. Protect from prolonged exposure. And then, the clincher: “We don’t want the poor guys to get frostbitten.”
The new lions arrived with all the promise of a fresh start. I set them carefully on the rug in my hallway and went all in. Easter-themed bandanas tied just so. Beaded bracelets looped around their sturdy paws. They looked festive. Cheerful. Definitely not about to get frostbite on my watch.
If we humans came stamped “HANDLE WITH CARE,” the way those lions should have been, we’d start out well. Softer voices. Fewer eye-rolls. Maybe even that half-second pause before replying.
But give it a week in the real world, and everyone’s stamps would fade. We’d stop noticing them on others, and they’d forget about ours, too.
Right at the start of the song, Harrison confesses, “I’ve been beat up and battered around.” The five Wilburys had all been through the full cycle: Beatlemania for Harrison, reinvention for Dylan, loss and a hard-won return for Orbison, and plenty of rise and fall for Lynne and Petty with Electric Light Orchestra and the Heartbreakers.
By the time they stood around that garage microphone, none of them needed to pretend life was smooth. Orbison’s voice rises above the easy back-and-forth, full and unmistakable, and he sings about being tired of being lonely. It carries extra weight coming from the man behind “Only the Lonely,” as if he knows that territory not just as a performer but from the inside.
Harrison keeps the focus surprisingly simple when he sings about one person he finds “adorable.” After all the wear and tear, he doesn’t ask for fixing or rescuing — just steadiness. The lines land like something you’d say after a long day: “Handle me with care.”
So now I’m committed to tending my replacement lions like minor deities. Seasonal wipe-downs. A little protection before the first frost. Maybe even bringing them inside when the weather turns. And, in a burst of optimism, extending that same care to every person I encounter — from close friends to the person ahead of me fumbling for coupons at CVS.
It’s a lovely plan until someone needs more care than I have to give.
This is where the Wilburys come back in. Not perfection. Not careful handling in the museum sense. Five legends. No one insisting on ideal conditions. No one pretending not to have rough edges.
The other morning, I caught myself answering someone too quickly, already half turned to the next thing. But I stopped. Went back. Tried again.
The lions are still inside. I pass them in the hallway and think about that line again, how it starts right at the beginning of the song: “I’ve been beat up and battered around.”
Most of us have. And, somehow, it’s spring again. We’re still here, tying on bright bandanas and heading back out, a little worn like the Wilburys, maybe a little wiser, too.
Joan Axelrod-Contrada is a writer who lives in Florence with her two dogs. Sign up for her free quarterly newsletter — complete with links to bonus content such as music videos and fun facts — by emailing her at joanaxelrodcontrada@gmail.com.