A Treasure Chest of Your Past by Kelly Besecke

Some interviewers are truly excellent at getting to the core of the person they're interviewing. Not long ago, I saw an interview like that--the interviewer, Isabelle Giordano, was so thoughtful about her questions that she was able to get to the heart of the person she was interviewing. As a bonus, the interviewee was Johnny Depp, who's terrifically thoughtful. You can check out this 1993 interview here and here.

Midway through the interview, Giordano opened a bag and started pulling out things that she knew would have meaning for Depp--CDs, particular movies, books, photos, and other things that represented his passions or turning points in his life. He said "This is like Christmas!" By asking him to reflect upon these "Christmas presents," she connected him, herself, and viewers with his inner life, with what's meaningful to him, with the foundations of his identity and his creativity.

A treasure chest of meaning. What if we all had our own treasure chest full of life's gifts to inspire us and remind us who we are and what matters to us?

So I composed my own. What would be in my treasure chest? What people, books, things, places, and images would I want to gather together to represent the important parts of my life history?

Here are a few of the things I came up with:

• A picture of Nepal, where I lived for three months during college
• Tubes of oil paint
• A photo of my oldest niece, who I took care of when she was a baby
• A picture of Devil's Lake State Park, in Wisconsin, where I used to go a lot during graduate school to think and to get inspired
• CDs of Bill Moyers' interviews with Joseph Campbell, which inspired my first book
• Tama Kieves' book This Time I Dance, which was a spiritual lifeline when I was crumbling out of my old job and wanting to go in a completely different direction that I couldn't foresee
• Monet's "haystacks" series of paintings
• A postcard of my college

The list goes on--my favorite music at different points in my life, a couple of movies that affected me deeply, people who inspire me, things that have meant something to me.

If you like this idea, you could make your own list like this. You could write about what the different things in your treasure chest mean to you, and you could even gather everything up and put it in a box to leaf through sometimes for recollection, re-centering, and creative inspiration.

Kelly Besecke writes about spiritual meaning, progressive religion, and authentic living. Her first book is You Can't Put God in a Box: A Thoughtful Spirituality for a Rational Age. She's a dreamer, a thinker, and an incurable idealist who loves singer-songwriter music, impressionism, and every dog she's ever met.