This is the fifth time I’ve written this entry. I started it last Sunday and scrapped that subject. I started another during the week, and stopped. I began two other versions today (Sunday) alone. And shot other photos yesterday. It was all ready to go until I got ready to fire up the laptop to post. What I’ve really been thinking about this weekend are memories.

This week I heard about a woman’s supposedly revolutionary best-selling book on eliminating clutter in your life. The idea that everyone thinks is brilliant is simply “keep only the things that mean something to you.” Okay. I’ve been doing that for a year and a half.

At no other time in my life have I had to weigh the emotional “value” of things than as I’ve gone through my parents’ house. I don’t even know many of the people whose pictures and cards I’ve found. I hadn’t lived with my parents in nearly 30 years when I came here to help, and I had never lived in this house. I recognize knick knacks and drinking glasses and vacation photos that bring back memories, but I don’t need to keep all of them.

I have my own keepsakes that bring old memories and feelings to the surface: a favorite coffee mug, a postcard, a purse, some jewelry, and of course photographs. For years I kept an envelope with a scribble on it. I think I’ve let that go, but the memories of that period and lover are still mixed. Sometimes happy thoughts are crowded away by painful ones, even so many years later.

I have some Depression glass that was my grandfather’s and a fern stand that was his mother’s, as was a lamp that my mother inherited. They remind me of the lovely house on the bank of the Ohio River; memories of my grandparents are good. Those things will come with me again.

July 6 was an old boyfriend’s birthday—and I mean decades ago. Memories of the good and bad trickled into my head all week: skiing, concerts, Kennywood, then, phone calls, tension and a nasty breakup. I know I am not the same person I was then, and it all happened as it should.

Today on NPR’s “Radio Lab” a guest told a story about a friend who had passed away. He talked about memories and how he and this friend had shared a very special, intimate moment. He noted a realization about it: that he is the only one on the planet now who has had that experience and that memory. His friend is gone, and he can share it through talking about it, but he is the only one who can feel the memory. When he goes, the beautiful moment will die, also.

He re-started the memory flow in my head—fireworks in Pittsburgh, a special dinner in NYC, a discussion of love in the dark, a drive along the coast, a night under a meteor shower—all unique, intimate moments shared with just one other person at the time. Do they remember them, too?

My final thought in this stream of consciousness is that “things” are not memories, they are triggers. Yesterday, while “downsizing” a bin from Oregon I found a t-shirt from one of the best days of my life. I not only took it upstairs, but put it on, recalling vignettes from that happy time. It’s impossible (and not really practical) to keep everything that has a memory attached. I’ve done well in clearing the clutter and not hanging on to items with marginal meaning just because someone else was fond of them. I am looking forward to having my own space again, surrounded by things that are important to me. But the number of fond memories I have of friends, family, loves and places would fill many houses. They are the most important possessions and travel with me in all places through all of time.

(The photos are from friend Jodi's recently acquired old farmhouse, where she and husband Kelly will make new memories)