Your Life is Delightfully Unique
The words only your family uses. The dinner everyone loved. The running joke. The tiny victory. The day that was remarkable for reasons only you can understand.
The Keeping Book gives you one beautiful place to keep the pieces of your life you don't want to forget.
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GARDEN ARCHIVE PRESS
OH. I Want to Remember This.
Your four-year-old calls question marks “mystery marks.”
Everyone becomes inexplicably obsessed with the same song.
Somebody finally learns to whistle.
Dinner is delicious, the music is on, and you realize you're having a really excellent Tuesday.
None of these events will make the history books, which is perfect because you aren't writing theirs. You're writing yours.
Around here, we call that a Keeping Book Day.
A lot can happen on a single date across your lifetime.
The Keeping Book has one page for every date of the year, but no years printed.
When something happens that you want to keep, turn to that date, write a line or two, then close the book and go live your life.
Years later, when you come back to the same page to record something new, you might realize that your child said something memorable, you first saw your future forever home, and you laughed until you cried with a dear friend all on the same date, but years or decades apart.
A life begins to accumulate, by date and by hand, layer upon layer, until you have an extraordinary record of what it was like to be you.
Write when something feels worth keeping, and skip everything else.
Keep going for decades and then pass it on to your heirs.
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Start any day. No daily commitment.
My Mother started keeping a book like this in college, and for more than fifty years, she has never stopped.
On any given day, she calls to tell me what happened on this date in some other year. “On this day in 1987, you lost your first tooth.” “This is the day your sister found out she got into college. Remember how she almost dropped the envelope in the sink?” Did you know that the day you had your last ballet recital is the same day that you got engaged 17 years later??” That book is more than fifty years old now and it is the first thing everyone in our family lists when we talk about what we would grab in a fire.
It doesn’t just hold memories, it tells me what mattered to my mother, and it is written in her handwriting, which I cherish beyond words. That map of her heart is the most valuable thing I can imagine inheriting.
I created Garden Archive Press to give everyone the opportunity to build the same thing. In an age where everything is digital and determined by algorithms, I wanted to make something that resists disappearance, something your grandchildren will hold in their hands and know exactly who you were in a beautiful, timeless book that can never be touched by the digital world.
I am a painter, musician, and writer, and I hand-drew the botanical on the cover of every book we make. I keep my own Keeping Book imperfectly, going months without an entry, then spending an afternoon filling in the memories. I built this company because I believe the life you are living right now is worth remembering, worth keeping, and worth passing down to future generations.
You just need somewhere beautiful to put it.
Become an ancestor worth having.
My Mother Has Kept a Book Like This for 50 Years
Why We Exist
What Qualifies for the Historical Record?
Milestones
Obviously.
Funny quotes
Absolutely.
Minor triumphs
Encouraged.
Family traditions
Of course.
Great days
Of considerable significance.
The Department of Ordinary Affairs is broadly in favor.
THE ARCHIVE COLLECTION
THE FIRST BOOK FROM GARDEN ARCHIVE PRESS
The Keeping Book $72
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Do I have to start on January 1? No. Start today. Start on your birthday. Start next Monday because something hilarious happens at dinner. The day you start is the right day.
What if I miss days, weeks, or even years? Then you are using it correctly. The Keeping Book isn’t a discipline practice, it’s a collection point. Live your life and write when something feels worth keeping.
Can I use this for a child I'm raising now? Yes, and this is one of the most beautiful ways to use it. Record pieces of their life now, in your handwriting, and someday give them a record of who they were before they could remember it themselves.
How many entries fit on each page? A lot. Each dated page has 21 lines, allowing years or potentially decades of entries to accumulate on the same date.
Is this a journal or a memory book? Sort of. But not really. A traditional journal is made for moments when you have time to sit down and really focus for a block of time, but The Keeping Book collects quick reminders of a memory. It holds enough to lead you back without requiring your time to collect it.
How is this different from a regular journal? A regular journal is organized by when you wrote it. The Keeping Book is organized by when things happened, which means January 14th holds everything that ever mattered on a January 14th, across however many years you keep it. That layering is what makes it an archive rather than a diary.
The Gift That Gets Better Every Year
The Keeping Book is the kind of gift that compounds with time. The person who receives it will think of you every time they open it for the rest of their life, and possibly beyond it.
It belongs at every beginning.
Weddings
New Babies
Baptisms
Graduations
Mother’s Day
Father’s Day
Housewarmings
Birthdays
Any Day Worth Marking
