The writing challenge for people like me today left me a bit perplexed. In some ways, it is a simple prompt to get us thinking and writing if our internal muses are taking the day off. Then again, it seems to make assumptions that might leave some, like me, wondering how to respond.

In fact, I’ve spent the better part of an hour just trying to develop an opening paragraph for the response I thought was appropriate. The challenge is, “Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?” I don’t know about you, but I cannot think of one thing that meets the criteria of this prompt.

Oh, I can think of “items” that excited me or, in one case, disappointed me. However, I can’t say I was incredibly attached to one material “item.” So, I began working on a post to explain why that is the case, and wouldn’t you know, I remembered something.

While that “something” does not meet the criteria of the prompt above, it will give you some insight into me and why the response to the prompt was so difficult to handle. So, what did I remember?

First, I remembered The Unforgotten Gift. That led me to “Cops, Kids, and Bicycles.” Those will give you an insight into me and my life without me having to rewrite it today.

What they will not do is clarify the title of this post. Why “Materially Speaking?” The prompt discusses an “item” to which I was incredibly attached. The term “item,” as it is used here, clearly implies something material, such as a bicycle.

The term itself can have other meanings. However, not in this context, especially since the prompt closes with the question of what happened to “it.”

I remember some material things in my childhood and young adulthood fondly. However, the things to which I was “incredibly attached” were living, breathing creatures. They were the four-legged members of our family, and if my plans work out, you will have the opportunity to come to know them in the future.

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