When Elephant’s Child
wrote about her struggles with purging her bookshelves, overflowing with so many
books, thoughts began as my own book purge began.What
determines a good book from an indifferent book?How do I began?
Perhaps these guidelines will help:
A book is declared good when it moves from being a bathroom reading book
to a book-by-the-recliner, in one flush.
A book from a garage sale box marked 25¢? It may look great, but it has never been read,
with only the first five pages turned.One will buy it, but it will eventually end up it one’s own 25¢ box.
When the reader
resumes at page 147 and a few hours later, moves the bookmark to page 245: This reader wants to find out what happens next.
When a book
works its way from the “high interest” shelf and works its way down to the
bottom shelf where there is a stack of Kohl’s ads and some two year old
magazines, the book did not pass muster.
And
When the book
one is thinking of buying at the used book store, one notices pages are folded
down in the upper corner many times
by different people.And, also, there
are notes made in margins. A badge of honor marks this book as a winner.
It is hoped that these observations fill your mind.
When Elephant’s Child
wrote about her struggle with purging her bookshelves, overflowing with so many
books, thoughts began as my own book purge began.What
determines a good book from an indifferent book?How do I began?
Perhaps this guidelines will help:
A book is declared good when it moves from being a bathroom reading book
to a book-by-the-recliner, in one flush.
A book from a garage sale box marked 25¢? It may look great, but it has never been read,
with only the first five pages turned.One will buy it, but it will eventually end up it one’s own 25¢ box.
When the reader
resumes at page 147 and a few hours later, moves the bookmark to page 245: This reader wants to find out what happens next.
When a book
works its way from the “high interest” shelf and works its way down to the
bottom shelf where there is a stack of Kohl’s ads and some two year old
magazines, the book did not pass muster.
And
When the book
one is thinking of buying at the used book store, one notices pages are folded
down in the upper corner many times
by different people.And, also, there
are notes made in margins.
One of the saddest things to see is an “OUT of BUSINESS” sign on the window of a store I have shopped in many times. It used to be something normal, such as the owners moving out of state, or the owner wants to retire. Now, the sign is about some action anonymously hidden.
Even worse are the “Clearance! All Must Go!”, along with “Store Closing! Everything 20% off.!” Then the percentage number slowly slides higher…30%...50%...70%. The signs are on the windows for such a long time, that I become immune to their invitation. Then, suddenly, the store is closed, and paper covers the insides of the once gleaming glass walls.
Courtesy of Bing.com free photos
I suppose that puts me in the highly-sensitive category (HSP), where I empathize with the hopes and plans of the owners when they first started the business. When sales were high, the owners and the employees must have joked with each other between customers, had donuts in the staff lounge, and good coffee. As the percentage signs went up, the air must have darkened inside, broken only by the buzzing fluorescent bulbs high over the sales floor. There probably was no laughter, no conviviality. The employees must have glared at each other, wondering who will be next to go. No donuts, no coffee, and they must have raced each other to the door to get home, to look for another job.
This was someone's home.
Everyone has to go through a closure of some sort in their lives. It is important to remember the following:
Closure of any kind is a cruel animal, which can prey on anyone. Just don’t let that animal eat away at you, and make you forget how wonderful you are, how marvelously loved you are, and how tomorrow will provide something for you. Closure of a love, of a life, of an opportunity, of…any kind can take away something, but you can gain more by letting that closure silently retreat behind you.
Hope springs eternal!
Some day soon, the paper will be peeled off the windows, and new lights will turn on inside those stores. Someone with a dream and a hope will jump in with both feet to create a place that customers will want to visit, and find many things to buy. That is when the sign on the door will read OPEN and Come on in!.
Garage sales are like candy stores for a lot of people like me. We ourselves have a garage full of multiple collections of the stages of our life, our grown kids' lives, crushed soda cans, Christmas stuff, and camping gear. I could go on, but that would be just plain embarrassing. Even so, my car has a garage sale GPS, and it downshifts gears, and brakes when passing someone's driveway spread with all the stuff that their own garage has regurgitated.
Bright shiny Saturdays are great days for cruising the streets with swivel heads. Yesterday was a day of discovery, on many levels. My husband John and I pulled up along the curb, and ambled casually toward the day's sale items. I had spotted two quilts hanging on a chair, and that was the bait for me. I greeted the couple hosting the garage sale. They were about my oldest daughter's age. Their garage was clean, and this stuff wasn't typical for their age. None of the things that clutter my daughter's garage were there. No baby stuff. No old blankets or linens. No college bookshelves. No, this stuff wasn't theirs.
I picked up the quilts, and they were old. I mean old. The quilt tops had been hand pieced, by someone with an eye for color, and who had a basket of left-over fabrics from other sewing projects. There were patient appliques and hand embroidery. The quilt stitches were even and firm, as if done by someone who took her time and was thinking about the importance of making something that would last through many many launderings.
"How much?" I asked the ridiculously young man who owned the house.
"How about a dollar each? That okay?"
A dollar each? Seriously? The work in these two quilts, the age they both held--shouldn't they be almost priceless. "Really...why so cheap?"
"Well, it's either a dollar, or let the dog sleep on them."
I choked back a reply, and indicated that I would take them. And then I wanted to know about the quilter, and I guess that is the real story here, not the garage sale itself.
His grandmother died a few years ago, and left a houseful of quilts, plates, glassware, doilies and tablecloths--all the things that a woman of her generation might have accumulated over a lifetime. He said that the best memories he had of her were when she would sit and make something, telling him stories of her life. "She always had something she was working on..." he said, trailing off to answer someone else's question about a Trivia Pursuit game.
People think of quilts and immediately the word "pioneers" come to mind, as if somehow the two are inextricably united, and have sole domain. His grandmother was probably a young woman during WWII, and knew how to dance up a storm with the men in uniform. She probably worn nylon stockings with a seam up the back of the leg. She probably loved the young Frank Sinatra, and wanted to skate like Sonia Henning. Then his grandmother married one of those men in uniform, had babies, and became a part of "The Greatest Generation" without ever even thinking about it. And, at night, once the kids were in bed, she listened to the radio or watched a very small black and white television, while she quilted.
I brought the quilts home, spread them out on my quilted bedspread and looked at them. 'This is quilting from the heart,' I thought. No co-ordinated batik prints, no die-cut pieces, no color wheel adherence. No, just a woman sitting at night by the radio, talking and laughing with her husband and kids, while she patiently and firmly put one piece to another. I like to picture in my mind how she held the pieces at arms' length, the way I do why I put pieces together, and think about how they will look in the scheme of the quilt.
So the quilts are in my house now, joining other quilts I own, made, or have rescued from being in a dog's bed. There is no great single uniting thought here, no deep summarizing 'a-ha' moment, just a bunch of images stitched together like a movie of someone's life.
