Recently, two friends expressed great sadness at having to downsize and give away treasured possessions that they simply did not need or have use for at this new stage in their life. They felt the loss of things that triggered precious memories and times. Stephanie Land, writing on The Class Politics of Decluttering in the New York Times describes the depth of meaning “things” can have:

My stuff wasn’t just stuff, but a reminder that I had a foundation of support of people who had loved me growing up: a painting I’d done as a child that my mom had carefully framed and hung in our house, a set of antique Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls my ferret once chewed an eye out of when I was 15, artwork my mom had collected over the decade we lived in Alaska. Things I grew up with that brought me back to a time of living a carefree life.

I remembered a solution I devised several years ago when I had to give up some of my own precious possessions: I photographed them to make a Digital Memory Archive. I found that just seeing an image of a meaningful item could trigger many of the same memories that the real thing would.

When I mentioned this to one friend, she looked crestfallen. She had given so many books aways and WISHED she had images of them, even though she could easily buy them to read again.

There is nothing like a physical book that accompanied you during a certain period of your life…

…Or may have been someone’s before you. A picture can spark their memory as well.

Digital photos take little room. You can document just about anything...

…the linden tree in your garden whose fragrant blossoms gave you joy every summer…

The sculptural cuttings you found after a huge beloved tree was taken down…

The beautiful French barometer inherited from a friend…

Random treasures found here and there…

Persimmon stem flowers collected over a winter of eating persimmons in a particularly good season…

…not to mention the hot shoes you used to wear with impunity (at top)…