



Excuse me while I turn on the soundtrack to Michael Jordan to the Max. I recently found it on CD at a thrift store, and it’s giving me all the necessary feels to push through these thoughts today.

Patrick Stewart died this week. My captain. Forever my captain. An actor who brought to life two of the leaders I’ve most modeled my pursuits on: Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier.

My best friend in high school was named Eric (like Erik ‘Magneto’ Lehnsherr in X-Men). He’d always drop his voice a few registers when he’d see me and say, “Charles, my old friend.”

Funny the things that linger in our memory about people. I can still hear him saying it. Something Stewart helped create became a little ritual between friends, and here I am, carrying it around all these years later.

Those things that remain, those artifacts… Are they our reason or our receipts? Do we live with an eye toward what we’ll leave behind, or does the evidence simply gather as we go?

Captain Picard once said, “What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived.”

And it’s really got me thinking about how those two things fit together.

What we leave behind might be a phrase, a feeling, a book. Or a needlepoint canvas, half finished, with colors chosen and stitches placed. Some of the intention sits clearly visible, some of it still waiting.

I find that last one especially moving, unfinished crafts. You can see what someone was reaching toward. You don’t know why they stopped, or whether they ever intended to return to it. But I love the thought of someone else picking it up and feeling that little spark of recognition. The glint in their eye as they consider how they might finish it.

Imagine sharing something so intimate with a person you’ll never meet.

In that way, an artifact can be an invitation.

Even if nobody adds another stitch, there’s something shared in looking at it and thinking, yep, I see what you loved here.

Of course, we aren’t the keepers of how others embrace or reject what we leave behind. Things get cherished, scorned, mocked, donated. Someone’s treasure gets shoved into the hands of a thrift-store employee, then discovered by another person who gets unreasonably excited about finding it.



I do love a good thrift store. It’s where my brain lets me fully focus on the racks in front of me, all that wonderful potential. Clears the mind.

I’ve also been known to say, “Live a life that leads to a well-attended estate sale.”

That, on its face, can sound pretty materialistic. But allow me to unpack what I mean by that.

Gather thoughts, emotions, experiences, and trinkets that bring you joy. Follow the things that catch your attention. Get a little carried away by something you find wonderful.

Wanting things because others want them is a silly way to live. I’ve certainly felt the pull, though. It’s easy to start gathering receipts for a life you hope looks desirable.

But I love walking into a home where someone’s curiosity has clearly been allowed to run around. Books on an oddly specific subject. Something handmade. A collection I wouldn’t have thought to start, belonging to someone who could happily tell me about every piece.

Sure, that could even be a room full of Funko Pops. Enthusiasm has a way of making things interesting. And the duration of excitement tells its own story.

I believe the best estate sales are the ones where we each find our own unique something. We wander through the same rooms and leave excited about entirely different discoveries.

Nobody has to understand the whole person. One small point of recognition can be enough.

“Oh, they loved this too.” Or my favorite: “What the heck is that thing?”

That’s what I hope a stranger might feel in my home. A little recognition, a little curiosity. Maybe the beginning of an enthusiasm of their own.

Far better than: Sure, I get this person, but get me out of here!

So, reason or receipts? I suppose the things we leave behind can hold evidence of what mattered to us. And in someone else’s hands, they can become a reason to try something, make something, or simply turn up the music.

That thrift-store CD is doing a pretty good job of it right now.

I think Picard was right. How we live matters. Our artifacts are breadcrumbs across time, little traces of where our attention went. Sometimes someone finds one and decides to follow our trail for a while.

Rest well, Sir Patrick. Thank you for giving us so much to carry forward.

I wish you well on your new voyage. Can’t keep a good captain down.





A note on how this was made

I brought my first draft into a conversation with an AI assistant, along with a tangent about getting a local model running on my phone. We ended up talking about unfinished needlepoint, shared intention, and what makes a good estate sale. As one does.

The assistant offered editorial notes and suggested that an artifact could be an invitation. That phrase gave us somewhere to go. We explored it together, and the assistant drafted a revision connecting the needlepoint and estate-sale passages back to “reason or receipts.” I then edited that draft, putting my own phrasing, opinions, and tangents back into the mix.

The header illustration and accompanying CW wordmark were generated with AI through the same conversation. We started with a photographic needlepoint concept, corrected some questionable stitching, then pivoted toward the moment someone discovers their own peculiar treasure. After looking through my site’s existing artwork, we worked toward the rougher pulp-noir treatment you see here.

The memories are mine. The first draft was mine. Several of the connections and sentences took shape through the exchange. I’m glad to acknowledge that shared making, especially in a piece about what happens when someone else picks up a thread.

Read the conversation behind Artifacts.