The Things We Keep

a writing prompt for you

May 29, 2024

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.

We are a month away from moving to a new town, new home, new church, new everything. Again.

If you’ve been a reader for a while, you may recall that our last move was just two years ago, for a short-term interim ministry assignment for my husband. He is headed to a new appointment this summer. It will be our eighth move together. We’ve always tried to approach our home and ministry transitions with a spirit of adventure. So far, so good…

Still, the whole house moving thing is challenging every time. We are older and a bit creakier with each one. This go around, packing breaks are more frequent. I stretch out flat on my yoga mat several times a day, doing preventative care for my wonky back. While I stare at the ceiling, I ponder what moving reveals about us. Touching everything you keep offers up insight.

I keep old pens and pencils—a drawer full of them in an otherwise mostly-empty dresser. Under the daybed in my office is another bin of them. In every desk, more. Some came free from funeral homes and conference swag bags. Some were bought for workshops or office drawers. Some work, others don’t.
I keep sentimental dishes. Green glass goblets, mismatched drinking glasses, and a sugar pot without a lid from my childhood home. The Amelia Earhart limited-edition plate that hung on the wall outside my bedroom. Baby spoons my children used.
I keep old beach towels. Actually, all towels. We still have the towels we bought soon after we first married, 31 years ago. We also have new towels we’ve bought since, but we keep the old towels, just in case. “They make good rags,” says my husband, about old towels and tee-shirts. And we have several boxes of these, just in case.
He keeps cords to things. Cables, plugs, chargers, wire things. These have sometimes come in handy, so I can’t complain. Much. (There is a lot of it.)
We keep art prints and pictures, some never-framed and still in their store wrappings or envelopes. Some were bought while traveling. Others were given to us by artist friends or departing churches. We might still frame them and hang them up, right?
We keep handmade things. His pottery, raku-fired in the driveway 4 houses ago. Hand-knit scarves and shawls. The children’s artwork.
We both keep memories. He keeps swimming ribbons, and scrapbooks his mother made. I keep travel ephemera, and random scraps I might write about someday. We both keep photos, but now we also have a scanner and a long-term project to digitize them.
We keep the non-negotiables: Books for me. Photography and other hobby supplies for him. We have down-sized our collections over time, but we know ourselves, and we keep what keeps us going.

As I stretch my spine, I consider what the things we keep say about us. There’s a little bit of just-in-case, and we-paid-good-money-for-this, and don’t-make-me-decide. But there is also this:

We value having what we need when we need it—pens, rags, cords—and I’d say we have plenty. (I’m working on a mindset of abundance over scarcity. Eventually this may lead to fewer just-in-case boxes.)
We value family, and meals around tables—both the memorable and the mundane—and we hold onto what reminds us of the people and places we love.
We value what we create—words, slightly functional pottery, trip memories—and we hold on gratefully to what others created for and with us.
We value what feels like home wherever we go.

My break is over. More boxes await. I roll up my mat, and unroll more packing paper to protect the things I choose to keep. They’ll move with me into the next incarnation of home—an abundance of value.