Why We Collect the Ordinary

The curiosity cabinet is a portrait of its owner's attention. A pressed leaf, a ticket stub, a stone that was briefly a planet — the ordinary objects we keep are the ones that refused to stay ordinary. Collecting is a form of noticing made permanent. Each object is a question we answered by keeping it: this mattered, this meant something, this was the day. The best collections are not curated. They are confessed.