My home is filled with old objects. The rickety three-legged desk at which I am sitting this very moment. Across the room is a bookshelf bowing with the weight of books from my childhood. In the corner, a cedar chest that once belonged to my grandmother and that now holds photos, forgotten trinkets, the Alaskan snow globe given to me by my father when I was fifteen. I never even removed that globe from its bubble wrap. I haven't looked at it in so many years I am surprised that I think of it now.
"I have always been drawn to the stories behind the things we keep. My grandmother was an excellent storyteller and my parents were storytellers too. I could sit and listen to them forever. At some point, I started developing the need to write."
I have always been drawn to the stories behind the things we keep," says Amber Lanier Nagle, a writer from Adairsville, Ga. From very early in her life, Amber understood the importance of preservation through oral history. "My grandmother was an excellent storyteller and my parents were storytellers too. I could sit and listen to them forever. At some point, I started developing the need to write."
The first story Amber wrote was about her grandmother's old sewing machine. "It was a gift on her wedding day. It was one of those old foot-pumping ones," she tells me. After her grandmother's death, the sewing machine spent years sitting out on a porch in South Georgia. It was nearly ruined when Amber got it. "I've had it restored now. It's really pretty and it makes me think of her," Amber says. "The sewing machine is a representation of her life."
I think of my mother's old Kenmore sewing machine, a gift from her parents on her 21st birthday. I remember all the Easter outfits, the doll dresses and the quilts she made over the years. Behind me, one quilt in particular hangs on the wall. It is stitched with tulips, purple cone flowers, lilies, trumpet creepers-all the fl ow-ers that grew in our garden.
Through this memory of my own, I can also feel a connection to Amber's grandmother.
The more keepsake stories Amber wrote and shared, the more this transcendence hap-pened. Members of her writing community, friends and even strangers were inspired and started sending her stories of their own. And so Amber came up with the idea for her book: Project Keepsake.
Project Keepsake is an anthology of essays about heirlooms, mementos and souvenirs. "We get to a certain age and there are stories behind the things we put on our walls or our dressers," Amber says. "We all have this in common." The collection is comprised of 55 contributed stories about diff erent objects-a mixing bowl, a wallet, a scrap of paper with scrawled lottery numbers.
When I met Amber for coffee in Dalton, she carried with her a box of her own treasured mementos. She handled her objects cautiously. "My house is full of keepsakes," she told me. "But this box-these are the ones most special to me." She opened its lid and began to remove its contents. A locket that belonged to her mother's mother. Arrowheads. Rare coins. A half-dozen buckeyes.
"My father," Amber says. "He always had buckeyes in his pockets. He would give them to me sometimes. He would tell me, 'Keep it. It's going to bring you good luck.' He died sud-denly in 1992. I wanted to put a buckeye in the pocket of his shirt before we buried him.
That night I went home, I couldn't find a single one. He had probably given me a hundred, two hundred buckeyes and I couldn't find any of them."
Amber's story titled "Herman's Brown Buckeyes" is the first chapter in Project Keepsake. Ultimately a friend of the family did bring a buckeye to the funeral for Amber. But after that experience, "I pick up buckeyes all the time. I find them back in our woods. My friends will give them to me. I've become the collector now."
I think of my own father again. I can imagine him carrying buckeyes in his pocket. Or walnuts, rather. My father has always been an outdoorsman. I remember how he used to pick up walnut shells he found on hikes. He would bring them home, and as a child I would paint them. Sometimes, he would string one onto his boot laces.
I think of the snow globe again. I cross the room to my cedar chest and dig it out. It is smaller than I remember, the length of my outstretched hand. A bald eagle perches on her nest. Beside her sit two eaglets encased in a glitter- filled glass globe.
When I was fifteen, I was a handful. I couldn't decide which parent to blame for the divorce so I treated them with equal disdain. Naturally, I refused to participate in family vacation. I had better things to do back then-like put peroxide in my hair and pierce additional holes in my ear.
So I stayed with my mother the summer that my father went to Alaska where he was surrounded by his beloved wilderness, 3,000 miles away from his petulant daughter. I imagine him going into a gift shop, holding the snow globe in his hand and thinking it was something I might like. When he returned home and gave it to me, I thought it was totally embarrassing. So I stuffed it away.
Now, it sits in my outstretched hand. I shake it; watch the iridescent fl ecks swirl then settle. My snow globe tells the story of my father, his best intentions and the person I've become. I place it on the corner of my rickety three-legged desk where I will see it every day.
My home is filled with stories.
"It's not about the objects" says Amber. "This is a collection about memories. We all have these kinds of connections. They're very deep; and they're very important." To learn more about Project Keepsake, order a book, contribute a story or browse upcoming events and book signings, you can visit the Project Keepsake website at projectkeepsake.com.
Priscilla N. Shartle's Gold Bangle Bracelet
"The bracelet is my link to my mother. I hope when people read my story, it touches them in some way and gets them to think about their own keepsake or their own memory. Now, when I look at my bracelet I think, this is not just my story anymore. It can be somebody else's story too. It's taken a new life."
Donna Sutton's Fiddle
"Everyone in the family knows about Granddad's fiddle. I never knew my Granddad, but having his fiddle has opened up more doors to have a connection with him, and even for my granddaughter to have a connection with her great-granddaddy. A keepsake has to do with the heart. It's about the little things. People don't take the time anymore for the little things."
Ed Huey's Tri-Fold Wallet
"To get my father's wallet was just an overwhelming experience. Particularly in the manner in which it came to me. Amber said I ought to write the story up for the book, but I'd never written anything like this before. I sat down at my laptop and the whole thing just kind of fell out. To me, this is a pay-it-forward kind of thing. Something that seems relatively insignificant to you can mean a whole lot to somebody else."
Marcia M. Swearingen's "Big Green" Mixing Bowl
"I have so many memories attached to this bowl - there is a lot of sentimental significance. I feel like there is so much sadness in the world. Whenever we can put out something that is hopeful or uplifting to encourage people that is a high calling. I hope that through this collection people will take the time to appreciate the small things in life. Or, take time to savor the beauty in something that is old. We are richer for that."