The Sunday pause: The object that fell
On memory, love, and the quiet stories our objects carry
Last night I began listening to The Heart‑Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, and Kitchen Objects (4th Estate 2025), a new book by British food writer and journalist Bee Wilson. And within minutes, I found myself completely still — breath caught, heart full.
Wilson describes a moment in her kitchen. She opens a cupboard and reaches for a heart-shaped cake tin — the same one she used to bake her wedding cake twenty-three years earlier. The tin slips from her hands and falls to the floor.
The sound is small.
But its meaning is not.
What fell wasn’t just a baking tin.
It was a memory of love once held.
A promise that no longer held true.
An object that had witnessed something she was only just beginning to understand.
Her marriage had ended two months earlier.
And the tin, silent for years at the back of a cupboard, seemed to know.
The quiet power of things
Wilson’s story reminded me of something I often return to in my own writing and in my work as a creative writing coach and bibliotherapist — the way ordinary objects hold more than we realize.
They are time capsules, memory keepers, emotional messengers.
They know things we’ve tried to forget.
They wait until we’re ready to remember.
A chipped mug. A stretched-out sweater. A pen with half its ink gone.
When we write about these things, we often end up writing about ourselves.
Not just about what happened, but about what mattered.
And maybe still does.
This Sunday’s quiet writing invitation
Write about an object that has outlived something.
A relationship. A home. A version of yourself.
Describe it — in detail, with care.
Then let it speak: what does it remember? What might it still be carrying for you?
✨
One small object. One quiet story. One way back to yourself.
Warmly,
Annamari
💌 PS. If this note resonated, feel free to share it with someone whose drawer might be full of stories too. And if you’re not yet on the list, you can subscribe below for more slow, steady writing invitations.
It’s the best of strange when the exact thing you’re thinking or writing about suddenly pops up somewhere else like this 😍. Looking forward to your next writing prompt!
When I was six, I stitched stories into an old school notebook: dragons in windowpanes, girls who could fly, entire forests made of poems. The paper is now yellowed, the spine is torn, and the pages are loose, like autumn leaves. But every time I open it, I hear the voice of a small girl who never doubted she would grow up to tell stories.
Not “Why would I write?”
But always, “How will I begin?”
That shabby notebook remembers the dream before the silence.
And in its frail weight, I’m reminded: the child knew something true.
We must not forget.
Thank you for this beautiful reflection, Annamari. It felt like unlocking a cupboard inside my soul.