Retrieval Decks

Small physical rituals for noticing what modern life makes easy to lose.

Four illustrated Retrieval Deck cards: Don't Decide Horizontal, The Bed Is a Liar, Follow My Feet, Stand Up Before You Think

Shuffle instead of scroll. Pull one true thing. Return to your life.

A Retrieval Deck is a finite, tactile deck designed to help you retrieve a truth, movement, image, memory, or ordinary evidence your nervous system has stopped registering.

Not self-help. Not an app. Not a demand.
A small, true cue placed in your hand.

Evidence of ordinary love

The deck trains the eye to notice the physical artifacts of care.

A porch with chairs, blanket, and fire table
The Porch Chair
A fire table with flames dancing on glass
The Fire Table
A tabby cat curled up sleeping
The Paw
A stained glass lamp beside old books on a sunlit windowsill
The Lamp
Old books and brass owls on an ornate shelf
The Bookshelf
A Prairie-style stained glass window
The Stained Glass

The Decks

Evidence of Love — Ordinary Love deck layout

Ordinary Love

Ordinary love leaves ordinary evidence.

  • The Lamp
  • The Pantry
  • Ugly House
  • The Coffee Pot
  • The Porch Chair
  • Welcome Anyway
Illustrated card deck — Momentum Is Medicine, Tiny Movements Rescue Trapped Days

The Bed Is a Liar

Stand up before you think.

  • Don't Decide Horizontal
  • Follow My Feet
  • Momentum Is Medicine
  • Nothing Has Gone Wrong
  • Your Brain Needs Traction
  • Get Vertical. Then Check Again.
Mike Johnson — Rockford, IL. Interview from Near Us Digest

Uncle Mike

A life that mattered because it was lived.

  • The Door Took Twenty Minutes
  • There Was Always a Book
  • The Game Was the Excuse
  • Small Towns Remember
  • Make Room for Another Chair
  • An Archive Waiting for an Editor

Be the first to hold a deck.

Kati Shaw on her porch with her cat

A note from Kati

Retrieval Decks are the next volume of a practice I have been doing for decades: noticing what other people walk past, preserving it beautifully, and handing it back.

I have spent years noticing ordinary life with editorial devotion: family interviews, local publishing, photographs of real houses, porch rituals, ugly hospitality, and the ordinary evidence that people are loved. These decks are the result.

Stay close

First-look deck releases, founder notes, and the occasional retrieval cue delivered to your inbox.