On Boxes and Bins and Rooms

a writing prompt + a resource to share + March Writing Hour

Welcome to Writing in Company. Each week I share some words and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points for you to write about what matters. 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 had a difficult time concentrating this week. My brain is careening around between work deadlines, family medical needs, the Oscars, and flashbacks from four years ago when Covid entered the scene. If I’m honest, though, my lack of focus is mostly because we are likely going to move again this summer, and the people who decide where that might be are sitting in a room together this week. A couple of them are subscribers/readers (hi, thanks for your good work, I am praying for you, and us….)¹

It’s a strange kind of limbo to know you will be leaving where you are, but you don’t yet know where you are headed. I’d like to be very Zen and mindful about the whole thing. I manage to deep breathe through it successfully four or five times a day, followed up by pointless Zillow searches of random towns in the western half of North Carolina, which is where we will be…somewhere.

In the meantime, I’m wandering through the rooms in our house with an eye on the fact that everything needs to be packed into boxes over the next three months. I’m letting go of at least one thing a day as a Lenten practice—clothing, books, kitchenware. Even though I down-sized all of that in our last move, there is still too much to keep moving. We don’t know how much room will be in our next house, or even how many rooms there will be. I dream about our home and possessions being leaner and a bit more minimalist. I’m not there yet, but if I squint I can almost see it as possible….until I go into a room like the basement or the FROG, where taped-up boxes remain after the last move.

Some of those boxes and bins tell stories about my life—who I’ve been, and parts of who I am now. There’s a box labeled BRCA with all the breast cancer paperwork from eighteen years ago. There’s one labeled J’s Camino Memories that I want to go through and write about. There’s a bin just labeled Jack with an impossibly small hospital bracelet and so many sympathy cards. And there are way too many boxes labeled J’s Church Files. They’ve lived in basements and storage units and closets and office rooms in several houses now. I wonder how long I should carry them, moving them from room to room, house to house, when my life no longer has the same shape or space or tolerance for stuff….Am I ready to be the person who has let those things go? Am I already that person?

a writing prompt

What do the boxes and bins in your basement and attic and closet and rooms say about (and to) you?

Are they holding important memories, or difficult paperwork?

Do you smile when you see them (high school trophies and ballet shoes!) or slam the door shut on them (not digging around in those memories today…)?

If you need a way in, start with a list of the labels on your storage boxes and bins, then pick one and write more about it, and who you were/are because of what’s in it.

a resource to share

Tonight I’ll put on real shoes and be at my local independent bookstore for a book launch event for Emily P. Freeman’s latest—How to Walk into a Room.

“For anyone standing in a threshold, here’s a book to help discern the how, when, and what now of walking out of rooms and into new ones with peace, confidence, and a whole heart.”

I got to read the first two chapters early, and I know the rest will be just as timely for me, and no doubt for you, too.

If you order your own copy before Friday, there are some bonuses available, including an audio collection of Blessings for Hellos and Goodbyes, and a 30-page downloadable Hellos and Goodbyes Workbook to “guide you through a process of naming your small, huge, terrible, lovely, and regular hellos and goodbyes.”

Here’s a bit from the workbook that resonated:

If life were a house then every room holds a story. Some of those stories are celebratory and generative, others may be deeply tragic or just a regular amount of sad. Many of the rooms of our lives hold stories filled with a mix of all of these and then some things in between.

All the while, we may walk in and out of these rooms without knowing or naming how they’ve shaped us or the gifts and griefs we’ve collected along the way. And so we engage in our daily routines without thinking and have milestones pass without fanfare.

Here is an attempt to pause in the midst of it all, to recognize not only the days we circle on the calendar, the ones that mark celebratory beginnings and endings, but also the ones that come to us unexpected and sometimes, unwelcome.

We are always walking out of rooms and walking into new ones. And we’re always saying both hello and goodbye.

Good stuff, right? Can Emily come over and help me walk around my rooms—real and metaphorical—and navigate all the transitions ahead with grace?²

You can find her on Substack at The Soul Minimalist, and get your own copy of her book and the bonuses here: https://emilypfreeman.com/how-to-walk-into-a-room-book/ There’s also a great interview with Emily at Lore Wilbert’s Substack post here: How to Walk *out* of a Room

March Writing Hour - Saturday, March 23 | 4-5 pm Eastern

My next live writing hour on Zoom for paid subscribers is coming soon. If you want to write in company with others, you are welcome to join us. (It’s a Zoom room you are welcome to walk into!) You can upgrade your subscription for a month ($7) just to try it. A separate email to paid subscribers will go out with the link, or you can find it on my Substack tab called Writing Hours. Let’s be brave and write together.

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1. I’m married to a United Methodist minister, who is now doing intentional interim work, for 2 years at a time. Lots of transitions, adventure, good church people, and cardboard boxes!

2. And can her sister Myquillyn—who also has a new book coming out called House Rules—come help me decorate the mystery house we will move into this summer?

Photo by Brandable Box on Unsplash