“They were gone then, grown… Maxine and I spent a full weekend disgorging the attic above the hallway. It all came down—boxes of school papers, fusty bags of outgrown clothes, bent dioramas, sports gear, dozens of battered shoes. We worked and sorted, trying to pick out the few precious items that would survive the move. One point, we found ourselves paralyzed amidst the boxes. Dreamily, I was fingering folds of hot pink tulle. She had pressed against her lips the matted collar of a tiny winter coat. Lost in these relics, it occurred to me that the past is not so much real as it is totemic, representing to us all that is lost in our very present.”

— Anda Boyle, 2011