I’m like a little kid, sitting in the middle of small piles of toys and shiny things. These are the things I can’t conceive of leaving behind. I’ll skip the descriptions of socks, blue jeans, and tee-shirts. Two zip-lock bags of pens, different kinds for different moods. My favorite books. Stationery Em gave me for my birthday – with orders to use it to write to her. One of my carved elephants. A teeny baggie filled with cicada wings. Baby pictures of my children. Older pictures of them, too.

Not everyone recognizes that a magpie’s piles are full of treasure.