It’s spring on my side of the world! And the season for yard sales is here. Or is steadily approaching at least. Spring cleaning and purging is underway, and the people in my neighborhood are readying their sidewalk signs and organizing potential sale items into bins and baskets (or so I imagine). I love yard and garage sales… the treasures that can be found amidst the random rubble of years gone by. I love random. And of course, I love a bargain. As well as the feeling of reusing and re-purposing… of giving away and letting go.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve picked up from a yard sale?
My Mother’s Yard Sale
Laid out on the lawn on folding tables, all no-longer needed items are listed at a fair price. Cotton dresses with faded polka dots hang limply on hangers; the long sleeves of blouses long gone out of style wave in the breeze, sweeping through the neatly organized memories.
Brown boxes with torn corners hold stacks of used books and bent magazines. Mother’s old toaster might be of use to someone who collects simple but respectable antiques from the fifties. Buckets filled with old but sparkling silverware sit and wait, continuously
overlooked by passing faces. Kenny Rogers cassette tapes with scratched off labels border the gray surface of the yard sale tables. Shoes once squashed in the bottom of a box in a basement finally smell the outside air, the pair’s not-as-striking color desperate
to shine one last time in the sun. Wooden picture frames that once held my family’s faces stare at eyes that don’t give them much notice. My mother sits in her folding chair, sipping tea, checking off the number of items she has left to part with. I watch her from inside
the house, through the window, wondering who would possibly want a poster of David Bowie, a poster creased with folding lines. Solid-colored t-shirts flap like flags, calling to neighbors, dog walkers, anyone interested in place mats with a few unnoticeable stains.
Mad Girl Writing 