Collect

collect 1 |kəˈlekt|
verb [ trans. ]
1 bring or gather together (things, typically when scattered or widespread) : he went around the office collecting old coffee cups | he collected up all his clothing.

I'm not much of a collector. I get distracted too easily and I move too often. However, I love the idea of collecting. I like how the things we collect - the things we forget in dark cupboards, the things we cherish, the things we have but we don't really want - can tell stories about who we are, where we come from, what we aspire to.

My grandmother used to collect rocks. She'd pick them up wherever she went and write on them. When I was a kid I couldn't understand it. Then she died and all I had of her was the idea of these rocks she collected. I didn't take one, but that they exist, that they map out her life, that she touched them once, that it mattered to her is such a comfort to me. She mattered. Now the things she collected matter.