Picture this:

A teen girl who’s usually too busy with her own world to get sentimental is paging through scrapbooks and asking lots of questions of her mother. They’re huddling over memories together, reflecting on a past the girl was too young to really know before.

High school football players who’ve long outgrown dolls action figures are lost in the moment, propping up the little soldiers, having dialogues and mock battles and all the fun. They’re rediscovering their childhood friends and heroes together again.

A weathered old fella sorting the tools that built bunk beds and animal pens and a life-sized pirate ship playground. Many tools are defunct or broken, worthless except for the memories they conjure.

A young man wandering through his childhood home one last time before the ravages of a moving sale. He’s running his finger along the spines of hundreds of books he’s read, deciding which few he will keep. He’s alone in the house, by intention, so he can cry or cry out as he sees fit. None of his siblings need to know he’s not so crusty underneath it all.

Confessions:

One of my greatest frustrations is that I live in a place where garage and estate sales are seasonal (winter! who cares…let’s sell something!) I am annoyed in election season, for it’s hard to tell the yard sale signs from the political ones.

I brake for garage sales, however meager. I have been to so many that I do judge from the curb, determining the pace of my approach and the intent of my purchasing.

Once, between drive-by’s and walk throughs, I visited over 100 sales in a single day, filling up an entire old school, full-sized Suburban, tying bicycles and a raft on top.

I may have been caviler, maybe even sometimes crass, in my visits to sales, not reckoning with the salesman’s sentiment.

How to catch it all?

Selling my stuff now is so painful, but then, I supercharge everything with added-value emotion. I have memories associated with almost everything we’re attempting to let go of.

So, I take photos. I write in my journal (you’re glad I’m sparing you from all that sappy stuff here!). I tell stories. I dictate to my phone when the emotions are flooding me so fast that I can’t write it down.

Here’s a point to remember: I would argue that one cannot catch it all. Not in the moment. Cherish what’s before you and take pictures of the rest. Be forewarned that too much nostalgia can cloud the wonders in the here and now.

Writing about it…

Writing about memorable things in the heat of a sale or auction or move might seem impractical, but there’s no better time. Once it’s out the door, it may be harder to recollect the significance of something. You don’t want that thing to fade into obscurity, now do you?

Sometimes, you do, in fact. Here’s a short list of things that I have been happy to see go:

1. Diaper Genie

2. cigarette-smoke-infused things

3. gifts that did not hit the mark

4. paraphernalia of dead pets

5. talismans of failure

Otherwise, take some of these strategies to cherish the moment and memory one last time…

Pick one thing. If it’s your thing, from your own collection, you may choose by impact or nostalgia or maybe just the sheer number of memories it immediately conjures (like, say, my favorite hammer or an old camera). If it’s not your stuff, then find an intriguing thing that you could imagine the owner just might have lots to reflect over.

List it. With that one thing, quickly bullet-point all the uses and/or all the memories. Again, this can be real or imagined; the point is to conjure quickly, as if there’s a witch hunting mob with pitchforks and torches after all conjurers. With that quick list, you’ll likely have pages of prospective writing ideas.

Sit with it. I was in my former shop last night, just sitting there reminiscing. I gave it time, and the old conversations, the wacky projects, the newly acquired old junk—it all bubbled up. If I were to do this for writing, I think I’d let them steep a while, for like a good stew, the interaction of memories flavors and enhances more memories…and after that while, I’d then wolf them all down on my dictation device. (Again, I recommend the Otter app for your phone.)

Share it. You may think you’re the only one going through things and getting all emotional. Well, you’re not. We all have waves of nostalgia. Even my most stoic, minimalist friends and kids admit to it. So take those treasured memories and publish them, share them at spoken word events, journal or blog about them…or here’s a great idea:

Take a picture of the inspiring thing and wrap it with a big reflective passage and gift it to someone who’d “get it.” If there was no particular thing involved, memories still make fantastic gifts, even if inserted in a card. I’d treasure that more than a gift card, wouldn’t you?