But Williams knew what he was talking about, I think. For, while it's true that we human beings have many, many abstract ideas -- hope and love, to name two right off the top of my head -- when we try to express them, we often return to what poet Billy Collins calls "the plentiful imagery of the world" -- a fancy way of saying "things". 

Consider Emily Dickinson's "'Hope' is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul..." and Robert Burns's "My love is like a red, red rose/That's newly sprung in June..." Things themselves become vehicles for metaphors because they express our ideas in such concrete ways. And "things" are also containers for our memories. 

We save things that are meaningful to us, for our own particular reasons -- say, spoons that remind us of places we have been. And sometimes these things take on meanings of their own as they travel through time -- with us, and sometimes, without us.  

In a recent Gift of Memoir session, WordPlayer Pam Pellegrino found herself writing about her encounter with another woman's "things" (tarnished silver spoons, to be precise) as she settled into her own new home.  

It got me thinking about how many ideas reside in the things we keep. Read on for a writing prompt about the things that you (or one of your characters) are keeping, and to read Pam's lovely piece of memoir.

And, if you're in Charlotte, I hope you'll consider joining me for a WordPlay class this September. (Yes, it's right around the corner!). Two are listed here, and there are a number of other choices available at www.wordplaynow.com. Whether or not that works for you, I wish you and your writing all the best.

Love and light, 

Maureen

I "discovered" Maureen surfing on the Internet (picturing her now on a surfboard, riding waves of words with wild abandon!). Was it just plain luck that led me to that first class? Or some divine plan? Whatever it was, I am very grateful. I was looking for a way to cope with the overwhelming emotions of loss, and didn't know where to start. I sensed that writing would help, but knew I couldn't do it in a solitary place. I needed a guide and fellow travelers, a place to feel safe. Maureen's workshops and retreats gave that to me. Her teaching gifts, combined with the love she brings to every class, have helped me move forward and challenged me to dig deep as I work toward becoming a writer.

Featured Writing

Cynthia

I had her things, but had forgotten about them until I moved to my own little house, my sanctuary, where my things were to make my home. Determined to stomp my roots deeply on this new ground, the tenth move in as many years, I vowed to polish all the dusty, tarnished silver objects I had, just a few a day, to display in a china cabinet finally out of storage. 

Young couples today don't waste time keeping silver shiny. They don't want to own any. I mused about this and other changes of time and circumstance as I stood at my kitchen window, polishing away.

A few days into the silver, I absent-mindedly rubbed polish on a small spoon. Glancing down, I saw I was holding an ornate, curlicued sugar spoon with an engraved "D" and realized I couldn't recall her maiden name. A spoon from The Butchart Gardens had an engraved rose. The Canadian maple leaf added color to another; an Indian totem dangled atop the one from Alaska. The spoon from North Dakota depicted a lone bison. From Norway there was a tiny fork, intricately designed; a plain spoon was simply stamped "Seattle."

I knew they were hers. Her spoons in my house, at my window, not part of my life then or now. But I held them with reverence and attention, thinking about who she was, the places she'd been, what she held dear. Her memories.

I did not know her. She was Jimmy's third wife. He told me about her once, showed me her picture. She was plain, like the spoon from Seattle, which I think was her hometown. She had a short cut with bangs, a pleasant, full face. Her smile was tentative, as though she was telling the photographer she wasn't going to fall for any "say cheese" fakery. No wonder. She was enduring an illness, discovered shortly after their marriage. He had loved her, nursed her for six years, lost her. 

 He raised the picture high, took a long look, and sighed, "Oh Cynthia!" then put her back in the drawer and made pesto for me. 

 This is the rest of what I know about her: her parents visited them just once, and he'd offered them cream for their coffee. They declined, yet he saw their hesitation. "Come on," he insisted. He made the best coffee, roasted the Bella Carmona beans to perfection. Drinking it was to be savored, experienced, loved. "Yes," they finally agreed, "but you pour it." He told this little story with exasperated wonder. "Can you believe it? Denying themselves a little cream in their coffee, as if they didn't feel worthy of cream!" 

We savored his pesto, experienced it. I felt loved. 

He died too, of cancer, and when the dust had settled -- the unsettled dust, really -- I had Cynthia's things. Her Bible, recipe box, a few trinkets of jewelry, spoons. Jimmy's three daughters from his first two marriages weren't fond of her. They were teens at the time she was in their dad's life, and to them she was cold and distant. Her parents were elderly when she died, long gone now, 20 years later. She had no siblings. 

Who is here to remember her now? Only me, at my kitchen window, polishing her silver spoons, the rare, untarnished memories of her, residing in my little house.

                                                                                                                                                                      ~ Pam Pellegrino

MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and two collections of poetry, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."

Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn -- and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours!