Tell us what objects are important to you now? Why?

We sent out this prompt on day 46 of the Massachusetts pandemic shut down in May 2020.

Honestly, we were lonely and wanted mail — meaningful mail — from people we cared about!! We also knew everyone was experiencing that time and coping through it in different ways and we were curious as to how. What, exactly, did “coping” look like?

So we asked people to send pictures of what had become important to them in those first strange, isolated, and scary days, along with an explanation of why.

This digital collection of words and images is the result.