“If you had to leave your house at a moment’s notice— if, for example, your house was on fire— what would you take? Now, I’m going go out on a limb and assume you want all the living creatures in your house to survive and that you’re going to be taking them with you. But, what possessions do you value? What are the things in your life that are so important to you that you would spend the very spare moments that you have left to collect them?”

To be honest, I don’t think I’d remember to take much out of the house. I’d try to wear appropriate clothing and maybe grab my wallet; if I’m lucky I’d grab my laptop. It has my life’s work on it. Mostly.

There were the wandering years: the years when mind and body wandered, looking for a home. There were those years I wrote myself into existence. I wrote, “I write, therefore I exist.” I wrote myself into history. I have gathered, in my maternal grandfather’s old army trunk that sits by the front door, notes from the wandering years.

I do not feel as if I have sufficiently captured the breadth or depth of bound paper in this photograph. The earliest writings start in elementary school; they cease shortly after the birth of my daughter. There is a binder containing most of my slides. There is my laptop. The binders containing thousands of film negatives are not pictured: I keep them in the room where Iris was sleeping. Like a fire, I had a short amount of time to gather everything and photograph. I did not risk the back bedroom. Also not pictured are my passport and the aforementioned wallet. I like to think I’d have the wherewithal to grab them in case of fire. I think I would.