Finding Inspiration for a New Writing Prompt

Right on my front porch

Over the weekend I participated in a writing workshop. We were asked to consider and respond to one of two prompts. The first prompt was something along the lines of what we would say good-bye to at the end of life. The second was to choose and write about something unusual in our homes.

Unfortunately, I was not in an especially creative or inspired mood the day of the workshop. I don’t know why this was the case. Some days are just like that. Not enough sleep? Not the right kind of sleep? Beats me. But as a result I could think of nothing to which I could say good-bye at the end of my life except the obvious — everything —and nothing in my home seemed unusual.

All this changed the other morning when I woke up feeling very refreshed and energetic. I had some coffee, worked through my usual repertoire of word games, and then, when I went out to get the day’s papers, discovered on my front porch the latest catalog from Restoration Hardware Interiors. Let me circle back to that second prompt! I thought to myself as I came back inside. So I did.

For sure this item qualifies as unusual. First, I didn’t even know there was such a thing. I was familiar with the Restoration Hardware catalog but I had never heard of an Interiors edition. Whatever the version, however, there is nothing else like it in my home. It is unique, one-of-a-kind, original. It even has a subtitle — There Are Those Pieces That Furnish a Home and Those That Define It.

This catalog is also impractical. I can hardly pick it up it weighs so much, all that thin, glossy paper, as fine and sleek as a razor’s edge. It probably gives the September issue of Vogue a run for its money.

If you don’t know, the September issue of Vogue is mammoth, marking as it does the transition for the fashion industry from spring and summer to fall and winter, although why the magazine’s biggest issue of the year is not one marking the transition from fall and winter to spring and summer, I don’t know. I am not Anna Wintour.

I bet the catalog thumps Vogue in another capacity. The value of all the merchandise on offer probably outstrips all advertising revenue generated by the September issue. Just a guess, and maybe even a good one — or at least something else interesting to contemplate.

The catalog is also redundant, in more ways than one—redundantly redundant, if you will. It’s redundant in one regard because everything in it is also on the internet. What you see on the page, you can find on the web. And it’s redundant because it offers more versions of more things than anyone could possibly want or conceive wanting.

Do you need a new dining table? There are a few to consider—at least 641 when you figure the various combinations of size, style, color, and material. How about a rug? Seven-hundred-eighty-six of those. A new vanity? Single, double, or powder? There are only 509 to choose from there.

I could also say about this catalog that it is beautifully produced. The photography is gorgeous, all of the lighting subtle, seductive—that’s the point, I guess, to suck you into another world where you want to buy everything.

And to an extent I even like the catalog’s size and heft. It lays open so decisively, definitively.

This here, on this page—this is what you need,

it says,

look at how it’s just lying there for you. Slip right into this cushy bed and snuggle up.

Looking over what I have written, I see that my feelings about this catalog are mixed. It may be aesthetically pleasing but the consumerism that it encourages depresses me.

Try as I might, I just can’t get into the spirit of the thing. But all this catalog had to do was to inspire me to respond to the second prompt of the weekend’s workshop, and that it did.

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