This morning our quiet street was packed with cars. Was there a sports game at the park across the street? Some super early morning breakfast party? We stuck our heads out the door to see a line of people waiting to get into our neighbor Opal’s house. Estate sale. “Oh no,” I breathed. “Opal died.” I took my whale mug of coffee down the street and ran into two young guys in sweatpants, a box of spiral candles, a hand-painted ornament, and a Teenage-Mutant Ninja Turtles glass in their hands. “How is it in there?” I asked.
“It’s like a time capsule. So much glassware. Little trinkets. So many candles. Dripless candles! Look behind the bar in the basement.” They showed me their wares, told me I should go early if I wanted any Christmas stuff, then got in their car and drove away.
Walking into Opal’s house was like stepping into the sixties. There were tiny, needlepointed people and sayings in wooden frames, brown and orange floral wallpaper, tables full of glass figurines and dish sets. The kitchen stopped me in my tracks. There was a wide brown oven that I doubted even worked, wall-to-wall brown carpet (carpet! In a kitchen!), and dark wood countertops with ovaled edges. Not one thing was stainless steel except for the Instapot marked “Not for sale” in red marker. There were sets and sets of china, dozens of unopened containers of sprinkles that looked positively antique, mugs with the names “Opal” and “Grandad” hand painted in maroon.
In the basement, I found the bar with boxes and boxes of color-sorted candles, delicate pink coupe glasses, hefty looking metal toy trucks that I would have considered buying for my son if I didn’t have a hunch that the chipping paint was lead based. I saw a box of lawn darts, a collection of 101 Dalmatian figurines, and an old Dayton-Hudson gift box labeled “Christmas bows” in what must have been Opal’s hand. Inside were crumpled wrapping ribbons and bows that had clearly been saved and reused for many Christmases. Upstairs, I saw the tiniest tin of Epsom salts I’ve ever seen, decorative baskets lining the stairs, and three red blazers, all in a size 14, all with matching elastic waist skirts. I saw oval-shaped paintings of Native Americans, and two naked clay figures of an indeterminate race nailed to a very random spot on the wood-paneled wall. I heard a man reading the back of a post card aloud: “George is gone now…” In the backyard: a rusted blue trike, two bikes with camel-colored leather seats, and tangles of tinsel and Christmas lights.
I didn’t buy anything. Eventually, I had to get out. The house was stuffed. Stuffed with the Estate Sale crowd digging through Opal’s things, stuffed with dust, stuffed with stuff. So much stuff. I could tell a lot about Opal from the things in her house. I’d only met her once, a few years ago. She’d been in that house up until a year ago after living there for most of her adult life, I learned from her daughter. She was not dead, but in hospice. She was comfortable. “She’s not coming back,” the daughter said, shaking her head, speaking more to herself than to me. “She’s not coming back here.”
I have always loved estate sales, even tinged with melancholy as they are. My mother, brother, and I would attend them on weekends, checking out beautiful old Minneapolis mansions, or sometimes going to warehouses. Once, I found a turn of the century photo album the size of a bible, full of a family’s ancestors gazing stoically beyond the pages. Looking at those faces, I felt distraught—who were they? Who had these people belonged to? This was clearly a treasure. I felt the need to save this family heirloom—but on behalf of whom? And from what? I set it back down. Another time, I found a closet full of vintage dresses in exactly my size. They had collars and unique necklines and beading. They were clearly well-made and likely one-of-a-kind. They were priced at $10 a piece. I bought them all and wore them to most of my high school dances.
In a similar vein, I love thrifting. With the exclusion of one pair of jeans and one pair of pink overalls, I have not bought a piece of clothing new for over two years. The vast majority of my day-to-day clothes are thrifted. All of the dresses I wear to weddings are thrifted. When I need to unwind or take a bit of time to myself, I like to go to the thrift store and dig around a little bit. I like to imagine who owned the pieces before they ended up here. Even so, I have grown more discerning over the years. Most of the time I leave the thrift store empty handed. Other than the random slam dunk of a treasure I find here and there, it’s mostly just stuff. The most special treasures I’ve found in recent years were the yellow platter with hand-painted blueberries in the center, one of a set that my grandfather had in his house on Cape Cod, and, one shelf over, a carved swordfish figurine from Chile that my grandfather’s girlfriend (our grandmother-figure) had and given to my brother before she moved away. It was like they had conspired to give me a wink and a hello in my beloved little thrift store. I bought the platter because I knew I’d use it, and I gave the swordfish a little pat as I walked by.
My husband, son, and I live in a small house. Most of it is one big space that serves as our living room and dining room. Other than my books, we don’t collect anything. We purge frequently. We loosely identify as utilitarians, wearing our clothes until they have too many holes, and taking care of our possessions so they last a long time.
Living in a small space reminds me of living out of a single duffel when I studied abroad. I didn’t stress about buying too many souvenirs along the way because I literally didn’t have much room for them in my bag. I bought art I could lay flat on the bottom and later frame, but I mainly captured my experience in words and sketches that I put down in the notebook I carried with me everywhere.
I think of Opal, lying in the nursing home, while strangers peruse the stuff that made up her life. I doubt she’s thinking of any of it anymore. We’ve all heard the old adage that you can’t take any of this stuff with you when you die, but our culture still has an obsession with the accumulation of material wealth, of stuff.
While I walked through Opal’s home, I wondered if I should pick out a scarf or a mug or a snowman decoration to bring home. I’d look at it and say, “This came from Opal’s house. Remember how her house was stuck in time?” The object would jog the memory and I’d have a story to tell. But then I thought of her house: full to the gills of stuff, of memories linked to that stuff that only she knew, of the stuff her daughter was trying to sell and get rid of. Stuff is a burden. I decided to write it all down instead.
As you can imagine, I have some thoughts on gift-giving in our consumerist society. Tune in next week for my ruminations and for the only gift-guide I’ll ever make. Spoiler alert: They’re books! The only gifts on my gift guide are backlist books. Get excited.
How do you feel about estate sales or thrifting? Do you have any second-hand items you cherish? What do you think about stuff? Are you a maximalist or a minimalist or something in between? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for being here, friends. I hope you’re having a wonderfully cozy week and that you’re taking good care of yourself wherever you are.
With love from my kitchen table,
Kaia
I felt like I was right there with you in opal's house, getting to know her too. I love estate sales and old kitchens. I used to buy everything I loved at thrift stores and estate sales. Now I just buy I know we'll use. I buy almost everything used so it's really become a skill of mine to manage it. Sometimes we have too much and I donate.
I feel this “stuff burden” more and more lately. My kids piles are usually what gives me the most anxiety, but I can get pretty overwhelmed in my own closet too.
B and I don’t really do gifts for each other anymore. Just experiences. It’s hard to get family on board though.