Buried Treasure

I have Post-it notes lining my bookcases, desk surface, and fridge. Scribbles on the back of receipts, in the margins of church programs, and on junk mail envelopes. Digital reminders and lists on my iPhone. Three book journals (mine, Everett's, Archer's) I simultaneously enlarge each night. The wall calendar and the purse-sized ATA Glance. Two Trapper Keepers in my desk drawer. (Yes, they still make them, but magnetic closure replaced noisy irritant Velcro.) Dated index cards on the fridge for each child's funny sayings and milestones. Dog-eared magazine pages. Screenshots of written passages that moved me. An assortment of mini journals and bound pads, because who doesn't want to get organized with an InkJoy or a Le Pen or a Pilot Precise V5 on page one of a virgin notebook?

Every day I think through the same cycle of

1. I need to remember this, so

2. Where should I put it?

Any slip of paper is in danger these days. We're moving; the contents of my entire house are either getting taped within cardboard or dumped in the trash. I shudder saying it, but I think the only thing I can trust is The Cloud.

I'm on emotional overload right now; there is an imminent changing of the guards coming to my little house and it has my brain spinning, mostly when I should be sleeping. Scraps of beauty, words, and feelings are flying around my hurricane's eye and I'm worried sick I'll lose one. Where do I put these things?

My blog has become my ultimate record; the proven winner in a race between office supplies, lined pages (college rule, never normal), fluorescent sticky backs, and memory. It's the only place I can quickly find what I once vowed to never forget. It is my safest safe place. It is the hallowed ground I bury my paper clippings, sentiments, skeletons, and petals in so they'll fossilize. How can I know what will go extinct? There will be layers of life after this, but for now I am pressing and preserving everything I have left into the stratum of 680 West.

Drawing detailing the best sample I've ever eaten at a grocery store, and that is saying a lot since 1) Meiers regularly samples their red velvet cookies and lemon bars, and 2) I once went to Costco the day before the Super Bowl and ate 38 different appetizers. Thank you, lady at Smith's, for pushing the $10 jar of garlic pickles. Loving the layers and strata on this toothpick! And the pita wasn't a pita chip...you couldn't poke a toothpick through Stacy's Pita Chips if you tried. It was a lightly toasted fresh pita. Details matter.

One other thing I don't want to forget but don't know where to put it: The "Y" on Y Mountain in Provo is 380 feet tall, so since 1 inch = 72 points the Y is a 328,320-point letter. (BYU Magazine)