I've Got Your Number

a writing prompt for you

Welcome to Writing in Company.

This is a community for you, whatever your experience with writing. It’s an invitation to write about what matters—grief, gratitude, grace, and more.

When the world seems off kilter, as it does right now, using our words can help us stay centered. It can help us move through despair toward healing and wholeness as we remember, lament, wonder, and make meaning. Writing in company with others saved me once before. Let’s keep writing now, alone and together, and trust our words to help us say what matters.

With that hope, each week I share some of my words and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft thoughts for your own writing project, as meditation or prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. You can always look back through the archive for more ideas. Grab your pen and paper, and let your words loose on the page.

I’ve been in Florida with my parents for a few days, helping with a medical appointment and some home projects. I’ve been to two different grocery stores—the crowded Publix near their current apartment, and the renovated Winn-Dixie near the now-sold home in which I grew up. My own small town in NC doesn’t have either store, and I don’t have those frequent shopper cards, so when I got to the register, I took a chance and typed in my childhood phone number. ¹

• The number I learned over 50 years ago—so long ago I learned it without an area code.

• The number my best friends knew by heart, (and I knew theirs.)

• The number we begged our parents to switch to a then-trendy “children’s phone” line but they never did, and if they had, would I remember this one now?

• The number my sister sounded out, digit by digit, when she got locked in the bathroom while babysitting, praying the small child on the other side of the door could operate the phone.

• The number my mother still thinks is her phone number, though it hasn’t been for years. If she dialed it now, who would answer?

Because memory is a frequent topic of conversation when I’m home, and because so many of us no longer learn phone numbers (but we should because sometimes cell service goes out, sometimes for days…), I Googled phone numbers and memory, and found some techniques for moving phone numbers from short-term to long-term memory. Any one of these could be a writing prompt of its own.

• Chunking: Break the number into smaller groups. For example, 649 528 7393.²

• Spaced repetition: Repeat the technique every time you see a free payphone.³

• Visualization: Create a story or image to help you remember the number.⁴

• Rhythm: Repeat the number in a rhythm or pattern.⁵

• Mnemonic devices: Create a song or math problem that incorporates the digits.⁶

Regardless of how it got there, what phone number is in your long-term memory?

a writing prompt

Recall a phone number you’ve known by heart for a long time.

Start by writing it down, digit by digit, then just keep going. What memories surface? What details about the phones and the rooms they lived in do you recall? Who called the number? How did you answer? Whose numbers did you call from that number?What stories, questions, ideas does that remembered number bring up for you?

Keep your pen moving and see what that familiar number brings (and rings) up for you.

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Join in the conversation with others in the comments. Tell me what you think about the prompt, or where your writing takes you.

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Clicking the heart to like this post helps keep my writing prompts visible and my own writer’s heart grateful.

1. It worked, and I saved $3.58.

2. I was stunned to hear a family member recall part of our phone number saying twelve-oh-four, when I only ever said one-two-oh-four. She chunked, I didn’t.

3. This is a good idea, but where do we see a payphone these days?

4. My husband uses this memory palace trick, and remembers all kinds of things this way.

5. As an auditory learner, I do this without thinking about it.

6. We all know Jenny’s number because of this. You know it, right? Are you singing it to yourself right now? You’re welcome….

Photo by Wesley Hilario on Unsplash