This by way of a test run...
The photo is my small collection of masks in my tiny entry hall. The 3 on the far right are ceramic ones that I made and the gold beaky one is a Mardi Gras mask from my daughter's high school French class(we made it together). The big black and white one was brought from Venice by my brother.
I was just thinking about things that I find important and things that I probably could call obsessive behavior...like my collection of cookbooks, cooking magazines and recipes from the internet and from long since vanished magazines. I always have this feeling that if I throw out recipes that I will eventually need them. I go through them periodically and find them endlessly fascinating and keep making promises to make any number of them. I used to keep a mental list of 5 cookbooks that I would grab if I had to leave the house suddenly. That list has never really changed, although there are probably 5 more I could easily add. I try to put trip photos into albums. It pares down what you keep and would make it easier to take with you in an emergency.
I guess what I am asking is what do you consider of such value that you would grab it if you had to get out FAST? I know that, ultimately, I could certainly do without most of what I have, but I find it comforting to have those things around me. We live in earthquake country and could have a disaster without warning. Fire and flood are much less an issue, although with last summer's fires, anything is possible. I just think of the people that lose everything in fires, tornados, hurricanes and floods, and wonder if I could just step back from everything and feel a sense sense of freedom from all these THINGS. I would hope that I could if it ever came down to that.
