The Burning House

If your house was burning, what would you take with you? It's a conflict between what's practical, valuable and sentimental. What you would take reflects your interests, background and priorities.


Here are my favorites.

• A trunk I found at a garage sale, filled with my hard drives, polaroids and negatives.
• Polaroid sx-70 I found for $9 at a thrift store
• Canon G10 it goes everywhere I do
• My trusty Nikon
• Bruno the stuffed blood hound,  I traded my older brother broken headphones for him when I was 5 years old.
• A photograph of my mom
• Compass from the Royal Navy my best friend brought me back from London
• A pile of coins my boyfriend and I flattened on the train tracks outside our college campus when we first started dating
• llama bracelet from Peru, kindly given to me by my best friend, after much persistence on my part
• A necklace my dad found when he was a little boy in New York and gave to me on my 17 birthday
• An old photo album filled with family photos
• Phone filled with all my contacts and that can be used as an emergency computer
• A couple of years worth of writing, sketches and photos in my Moleskines
• A stack of my favorite Polaroids taken in Miami, California and Texas
• An antique book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales   

• Tattered envelope full of silver dollars, from my Great Grandmother
• Tiny gold treasure chest - the first piece of jewelry I remember receiving from my Mother.
• Gold shamrock pin - purchased by my 19 y/o Father and sent home to his Mother, right before he shipped off to Viet Nam
• Small blue box full precious jewelry
• The tiniest chess set I’ve ever seen - a treasure from an Estate sale long ago
• Wooden box full of foreign currency - some I’ve taken home with me, some I’ve found in my change
• Short stories by O. Henry - a gift from my Mother
• A photo of my boyfriend and I, from our first vacation together
• A sprig of lavender - picked on our one year anniversary
• The metal tag from my Grandfather’s Navy footlocker
• My favorite scarf
• My photo album
• A geode - from my trip to Utah
• A tiny butterfly pin - from my Mother

• I wondered around my house, looking at the ornaments and memories that filled it.  I collected a few things, even photographed them.  But somehow they didn’t seem to fit together. And then I looked down, at my feet, and realized that all I needed or wanted to ‘save’ from the burning house was me.

What would you save?

Via- The Burning House