Sunday morning is here. "I" has went out, "I" has come in. It is cool outside but I think it has stopped raining. I cannot hear the rain, only the coffee pot as it chugs that dark, hot brew into the pot. I got up about 4:15 and here it is 5:00 and I still have cobwebs in my head . I had not prewrote my Blog for today. Not nary a thought in my head, So we probably are in for a very rough day here in Blogland.
Yesterday morning I got to go to my garage sales. It misted rain on us a little but any died in the wool rummager will not let that stop them. Nothing keeps us from our junk. It was fun although I didn't come home with many treasures, there was several. Things I felt I just couldn't live without. A radio that hangs in the shower. I do not know if it works as it has no batteries but I will buy some and find out. Now my only problem is how will I hear the radio when the shower is running. Oh yes it also has a clock. I can see me with soap in my eyes, shampoo on my hair, straining to see the time and hear the radio. I'll have to buy batteries to find if this will really work out. I also brought home a large soup tureen. Fancy fall flowers adorning it and it has its on plate to sit on. Just what I need for all the large dinners I don't cook. I promptly brought it home, washed it and shoved it to the back of the top of the refrigerator. There it will sit, gathering dust for many months to come. I also bought a bunch of yellow fabric flowers and a Christmas afghan. Treasures that I didn't need but at the moment I saw them felt I wanted them. So the hoarding continues.
The one sale that tugged at my heart and always does is the estate sale. They always make me sigh as I wander through the rooms looking at the remnants of someones life. Its different than when you go to a sale and the person whose items you are buying is walking around, laughing as you rummage through their things. A estate sale is much different as you have adult children sitting at the card table as strangers paw through their parents belongings. I always think I can see the shadow of some elderly lady looking in horror as a stranger carry's her yellow Afghan out that she had spent hours making. Thinking one of her children would want it. In the garage I swear I see a older man watching from the shadows of the corner of the garage as men seek through his tools he spent years accumulating. All of their years of obtaining these items, these memories, gone in a day. I wonder at the end of the day are the ghostly figures watching as the children divey up the proceeds from the sale.
When I got home I dropped into a chair in the living room, looking around at rooms filled with things. I could picture my two children sitting here, me gone. Shaking their heads at all of these mementos of my life. I can hear my daughter as she opens the cabinet door over the sink. "Good grief," she will say to her brother. "Would you look at all these empty cottage cheese cartons. Why in the world did she save these?" Well I saved them dear heart because you never know when you will need them for leftovers.
Now I won't even have to be there when they go through my clothes and shoes to know what they will say. As they go through a closet so full that one has no idea just what is in there. There could be a body and if it never smelled, you'd never know. There is of course shoes that you won't believe. When they go through my jewelry boxes there is no jewels. But they will find a fancy piece of glass that use to be a pin. The pin part is broken off but Brandi bought it for me when she was five, at a rummage sale across the street from where I lived. They also will find Jer's bars from R.O.T.C. and a necklace that is really part of a pair earrings Billie bought me for Mothers Day at least twenty-five years ago. Will they go in the trash never realizing these are treasures. Important things that fit into my heart.
It makes me want to go around taping little notes on different things. A dress I bought in 1983 back in a time my life was serene and my Mother was still alive, a suit a older woman gave me in 1986 She had bought in 1949. She told me how she had saved for months to buy this suit. So she could wear it to work at "Newmans," a department store that use to be here in Joplin. These things can't grace a garage sale table nor wind up in a trash can.
But who knows how the outcome will be. I would like them to know as they sort through all the junk, I will be watching. My hand outstretched as they head to the trash can. So I guess if they can still do it knowing that I will know. Then just go ahead. It just seems sad to me a person's whole life can be erased, at least their material things. At a house somewhere with a rummage sale sign in the yard. Gone after one day of sales. A few dollars, run the vacuum. All is over. You know I think I may follow the ones who buy my shoes. I'm going to stir their life's up a little. But for now after rambling and making little sense , if any at all. I am gone. To write my notes. First I have to find the scotch tape. But for now, I'm outta here.
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