 For Authors: August 28, 2013 Issue [#5853] |
  For Authors
This week: Observations During Garage Sales Edited by: Fyn  
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“You can either be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It all depends on how you view your life.”
― Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
“It was like walking into a treasure trove of books, hoarded by pirate librarians.”
― Pseudonymous Bosch, The Name of This Book Is Secret
“What we spend, we lose. What we keep will be left for others. What we give away will be ours forever.”
― David McGee
“There is all the difference in the world between treasure and money.”
― Roderick Townley, The Great Good Thing
“…Amongst these legends of dragon hoards,
Where secret, precious things are stored,
There golden nugget and diamond shard,
There treasure-keeper hoped to guard.
As bolted doorway securely braced,
hoping its treasures to ever hold,
hoping beyond when time grows old,
So stood the keeper in its place.
A statue of unrelenting stance
Still stands victim to happenstance,
For treasure-keeper did not bargain
on a bit of chance and a bit of dwargen…”
- Dwenzuak the dwargen”
― T. William Watts |
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Garage sales--the trek from sign to sign, down unfamiliar side streets... on a mission to find a specific 'thing' or not, perhaps just to go look and see, or yet maybe to find that 'thing' you didn't know you 'had to have' until you see it and, simply, know.
Let's face it. You can find almost anything at a garage sale, yard sale, tag sale, rummage sale--whatever you choose to call it in your neck of the woods. And you never know just what you might stumble across. Typically, for me, tis work jeans my hubby can destroy at work welding the metal contraptions he fabricates...he goes through jeans the way I might go through the home-grown margaritas on Saturday night after a very long week! I also look for old books. Sometimes, I find absolute treasures! It depends not only on what I might be looking for, but what I might catch out of the corner of my heart's eye and then stop to notice.
I followed signs down roads new to me, leading though a subdivision, out the other side, down past a lake and up a dirt road. The signs were cute, reading variously on big odd shaped signs written in purple curlicued letters: Trinkets, Trash and Treasures, Getting Closer (with a pointing arrow), Don't Give Up (I know we are off the beaten path!) with another arrow, almost there and, finally, you made it! Burma Shave had nothing on these folks.
Little, old, impossibly old woman with a smile a mile wide that couldn't quite mask toothless gums. Everything set out on beautiful tables, desks and shelves, set off by doilies, place-mats, or layered on floral scarves. Reasonable prices, for the most part--the only 'un'-reasonable ones were those beyond my price range, but SO worth every penny. I salivated over a hundred year old desk that gleamed with years of loving care and polish but simply couldn't justify the price even though it screamed to be a part of my office. Jewelry, old jewelry--everywhere...spilling out of minute drawers, dangling from edges or hooks, all catching the sun and singing of stories.
She followed me around, dogging my heels--not in a 'I want to be sure you don't steal anything' way, but in a 'lonely old woman with tales to tell' sort of way. The treasures here were in her words, her history. A cameo pin was her grandmother's engagement broach. From 1884.
"Shouldn't you be selling all this stuff at an auction? I asked.
"Oh, I expect so, but auctions are so, so," she paused, searching for the right word, "cold, I suppose. Feel free to dicker with me on prices. That's part of the fun, you know."
She went on to tell me how Grandpa Haggerty had plowed fields, milked cows and mucked stall after his own work to get the money together to buy the cameo. "Times were a lot harder back then," she told me, not like now. "Folks have it easy these days."
I opened a dictionary she was given upon graduating from her one room schoolhouse in 1937, inscribed : To Sarah, never stop learning." I'd learned by now that she was 91 years old--err-- young as she put it. Her husband of sixty-eight years had passed away seven years earlier and she was getting ready to go "mold away" in an assisted care home as the "old place was just too much to handle any more." She'd outlived her husband, two of her three kids and he was "already in a nursing home and worthless even before." She had grandkids and great-grands scattered, but she preferred to do for herself and make her own decisions.
I picked up a worn, tattered book of poetry. "Hiram gave me that," she said patting the embossed leather cover. "Just don't have much room where I'm going."
"How can you bear to part with it?"
"Oh dearie, never you mind about those sorts of things. I have every one of those poems right here." and she patted her heart. "They will always be with me."
I heard about everything from necklaces the kids gave her, to that desk I swear she'd have given me had i asked, to the hand-tatted doilies which had distinctive patterns for different families. "That way you always got yours back from the church suppers."
Inside her immaculate farm house looking over fields and a slice of lake I found things galore. Dented muffin pans, a 'Felix, the Cat' clock, a pristine butterfly collection, delicate tea cups and demitasse cups as well all sat catching the afternoon sun. Wind chimes sand off the back porch where an old wringer washer was plunked next to a bentwood rocker which had been her mother's aunt's something or other. Old trunks, humped, brass bound or leather encrusted held up brass lamps, more books, and, and, oh!
A slab of wood, bird's eye maple, perhaps, balanced on a multi-branched root and it out-screamed the desk. It had me written all over it. It bellowed. I listened. Nearby, on another chest, was a round of wood with jewelry attached to it. Inside the base was a music box that played a nameless tune from my past. Attached to the edge of the wood was a wooden holder holding a small telescope-looking tube pointed at the jewelry now circling to the music. Peering down the tube, the jewels kaleidoscope-d and danced to that lilting tune.
Her stories flowed about roots pulled by shoulder and horse from the lower back forty and Hiram's version of capturing the stars for her. She excused herself to go help others folks who wandered in and then out laden in new ageless treasures. Through an upstairs window I saw my precious desk, cubby-holes, secret drawer and all, gingerly placed in the back of a pickup truck. I saw her tuck a pretty crown-like tiara in a little girls curly hair and saw the dazzle smile on her face as she thanked her. Sarah shook her head when the woman asked how much, and through the open window I heard her tell the lady that she'd already been paid by the little girl's smile and exceptional manners.
Carved wooden canes leaned in wrought iron cages. A stereoptican with a basket full of images. The picture already in the wire holders was of a Model T stuck in a very muddy road. Sepia toned photo did nothing to take away from just how muddy the road was.
A huge spinning wheel sat in yet another room. "Spun the wool for those shawls hanging here," she pointed. I hadn't heard her come in. She handed me a glass of lemonade. With my other hand I fingered the soft, soft shawl and then a thrown of early morning blue-sky blues. I downed the drink so i could hand back the glass. The throw joined the pile in the other room.
Two hours, three trips to the car and fifty dollars lighter, I back-tracked down her backroads. When I left there were seven cars parked in the grass and she was happily telling her tales and making people smile.
Stories clung to every object there...even to the old wooden spoon in the kitchen. My grandmother had had one of them. I still remember how it smarted! I meandered a few more yard sales, looking at the objects scattered on tables,laid out on blankets or hanging from tree branches through a new filter. Bought a necklace, newly made to 'look' old that will be hanging in my ElderTree at work...where it will begin its own story. A simple question such as "What's the story behind this {what-ever}?" brought forth backgrounds, histories, memories and more.
Happy prom dress recollections, wedding day wistfulness, new baby smiles and first days of school remembrances. It was the, "Wow! I had one of these..." moments that spread as folks looked at a lunchbox collection, the beer sign-mirrors or the macrame plant hangers. People mused on college days, frat parties and pinafore dresses with smocking and big pockets. A woman carting a Fred Flintstone lunchbox, a pair of Mary Jane shoes, an artist easel and a bagful of odd buttons told me, "Thank you, never had quite this much of an adventure at a garage sale before."
It is all in how you look at things, isn't it?
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DRSmith  wrote in:It's no secret I've been a fan from day one, but just when I think I've seen all of your style and effectiveness through your news letters, you come up with another phenomenal gem.... like this one. I've always said to people how you can bring life to a stack of wood, an old shoe, or just about any ordinary thing we interact with every day. This newsie exemplifies just how important the correlation is between the written word and the senses... of how we as aspiring writers are challenged to make the transition in such a skilled manner as to reel in, convey, and keep our audience captivated... no different than that blind woman's engaging smile. No doubt a dozen Rembrandt's were flashing through her mind, courtesy of her husband. Tom Clancy hit home run after home in a similar, highly-skilled manner with his techno-military thrillers... putting us in the sub, on the carrier, in the field of harm's way. A most brilliant, real life analogy WDC'ers would do well to heed the message. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, kind sir! You clearly show the power in words yourself for your words have made my day!
JACE  says: Miss Fyn, this was an awesome newsletter! I'll be filing this one away to re-read.  Thanks for sharing your day with the rest of us.
*smiles* Thanking you!
Shannon  says: What a beautiful newsletter, Fyn! Thank you for sharing. 
Thank YOU!
lynnhammer writes: Thank you for this. Sometimes as a writer you get entangled in plot schemes and character development. It is easy to forget that you are describing a world to a blind person and that you have to be mindful to point out the points of brilliance so that they might see it too.
Yup yup!
Elle - on hiatus  comments: This was a beautiful newsletter. I think imagine how to describe the scene before you to a blind person so they could genuinely picture it is an incredibly useful exercise for a writer. I'm going to try this more often, even if I'm only describing it to myself. 
It really works!
blue jellybaby  adds: That sounds like an amazing hike, thank you for sharing it
My pleasure!
Wordsmitty ✍️  offers: I'm not sure that your pictures will do justice to the scenes I've already seen. An excellent reminder that, as writers, we need to see with words and not just our eyes.
Honestly, don't think they did!
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