Imagine you’re opening a chest, and it has five of your favourite things inside. The chest has infinite capacity and can deal with the abstract as well as physical items.
Start by describing your treasure chest, and then go on to describe each of the things inside and why they’re important to you.
Feel free to share your writing in the comments if you’d like.
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The Box.
Face it. Life can be mundane. How different is today from yesterday? Or tomorrow from today? Maybe that’s good. Whatever slings and arrows assail us, time finds a way to blunt them. We just get used to the way things are and accept them, no matter how good or bad.
That was my life, essentially the same as everyone else’s life, until this morning. This morning I lugged the old wooden chest back home from the yard sale.
It was interesting looking, but I didn’t initially feel compelled to buy it.
It was locked.
“What’s inside?” I asked the man, presumably the homeowner.
“Don’t know.”
“Do you have the key?”
“If I had the key, I’d know.”
I couldn’t argue with that logic. “Where’d it come from?”
“Don’t know. It’s been in our basement as long as anyone remembers.”
“You never tried to open it?”
“Nope.”
I was getting the picture. This guy was not the curious type. But I am. I paid five dollars, half the asking price. I would have paid ten, but haggling is a tradition worth preserving.
I brought the box home, almost as eager as a kid on Christmas. I took it immediately down to the basement, to my workshop. I’ve faced tougher tasks that opening this locked box. A small prybar should do it. But it didn’t. I was surprised at the strength of the box. From the look of it, it was just a homemade thing, meant for basic storage, not for security.
I examined it more carefully. I looked from all angles, and considered possibilities of why it ws so strong, so well sealed. And how to get into it. That’s when I noticed a peculiarity. On the bottom, what appeared to be a defect in the wood was really a button. How many people had studied this box in the past, and never noticed the button? I pushed it, and a drawer slid open from the side of the box.
At first, there appeared to be nothing, but then I could see. The more I looked, the more easily I recognized. How much will it change my life? By a lot, in some ways. By not so much in others. I’ll still go to work tomorrow.
The box provides no wealth, no cash value. It’s not even what’s inside that matters. It is the box itself, the box that seems innocuous, simple yet impregnable when approached by force. But when studied, when understood, it can be opened, and then it reveals great secrets.
Secrets? It seems plain as day. I look around me now, and it all looks different, yet nothing has changed.
The Treasure Chest
My treasure chest would not be made of polished gold or covered in jewels. It would be an old wooden chest, weathered by time, with deep scratches across its lid and brass hinges softened by age. Small carvings of stars, birds, books and curling leaves would cover its sides, as though each previous owner had added something of themselves. When opened, it would release the scent of old paper, rain-soaked earth and freshly brewed coffee. A gentle silver light would glow from within, because this chest would hold more than objects. It would hold memories, feelings, possibilities and pieces of life that cannot normally be gathered in one place.
The first thing inside would be my camera. It would rest near the top, ready to be lifted out at a moment's notice. My camera is important to me because it allows me to pause the world. Through its lens, I can notice details that others might walk past: a bee clinging to a flower, a tern diving into the water, the shape of a cloud or a seal appearing unexpectedly at the barrage. Photography gives me a way of saying, Look at this. This mattered. This moment existed. A photograph may freeze only a fraction of a second, but the feeling behind it can remain for years.
The second treasure would be an endless notebook filled with stories. Its pages would never run out, and whenever I turned one, a fresh blank page would appear. Some pages would contain finished stories, while others would hold half-formed characters, fragments of dialogue, strange dreams and ideas that had not yet discovered what they wanted to become. This notebook would represent my creativity. Writing allows me to travel far beyond the limits of an ordinary day. I can create hidden libraries, mechanical owls, moonlit journeys, brave children and mysterious houses. My stories are important because they carry parts of me into places I may never physically reach.
The third thing would be nature itself. Inside the chest would be a small living landscape, complete with a river, trees, wildflowers and an enormous open sky. Birds would sweep over the water, bees would move lazily between flowers, and the light would change from soft morning silver to the warm gold of evening. Nature is one of the places where I feel most present. It does not demand explanations or expect me to be anything other than what I am. The river continues to flow, the birds continue to fly, and the seasons change in their own time. Being among these things reminds me that life does not always need to be hurried or controlled. Sometimes it only needs to be noticed.
The fourth treasure would be the people I love. They would not be trapped inside the chest like possessions. Instead, it would contain their laughter, their voices, their kindness and all the moments we have shared. There would be conversations over coffee, familiar greetings, unexpected visits, photographs, messages and the warmth of knowing that someone is pleased to see me. It would also hold the people I have lost, not as sadness alone, but as memories that remain part of who I am. Relationships are important because they give shape to our lives. Even brief moments of genuine connection can make an ordinary day feel meaningful.
The final thing would be freedom. It would appear as a wide-open door standing beneath a bright sky, with no walls around it and no fixed destination beyond it. This would not only mean the freedom to travel. It would mean the freedom to think, imagine, create, choose and continue becoming myself. Freedom is important because so much of life can be shaped by circumstances we did not choose. Yet there is still freedom in deciding how we respond, what we make and what we allow to define us. My body may have limitations, but my imagination does not. Inside a story, a photograph or a dream, I can go anywhere.
When I closed the chest, nothing inside it would disappear. The camera, the stories, the landscape, the people and the open door would continue to live within me. Perhaps that is what our favourite things really are—not simply possessions we collect, but reminders of what makes us feel alive. My treasure chest would contain the things that help me notice the world, connect with others and keep creating, even when life feels uncertain.