A Whole New World
For a brief moment, I felt an energy go through me like a
child who stands at the gates to Disney World for the first time. I felt joy.
My heart swirled. I smiled
without effort for the first time in a long time. My mind felt fresh like the way you feel when
someone opens a window to let in fresh ocean breezes to a stuffy cottage. If I had to replicate the scene in a movie, I
would have me looking up and around and spinning in a circle. Wow.
Over 250 cookie jars perfectly aligned on shelves – no dust – arranged in
groupings: polar bears with soda
bottles, cottages comprising a village, kittens, designer bears, cartoon
characters … the list goes on. Not only
that, the room was knotty pine – and that in itself is glorious to me.
The lady showed me this room of treasures and smiled
cheerily, knowing she had found a friend in me.
I understand what it is that makes someone a collector. For the record: Collectors are different than hoarders. Collectors have a purpose – be it having a
complete set of something vintage, or gathering to re-sell at a later date, or
some such thing – and collectors put order to their treasure trove. They care for it, keep it orderly and in
tip-top shape. And then eventually they
realize when it is time to shift gears and move forward. It is unfortunate that in our television
culture we are so quick to presume that just because a person has more than one
of something that he or she is a hoarder.
It just ain’t true.
My friend is a crafter and she has painted and done
ceramics, and I’m sure a whole host of other occupations that I am unaware
of. She came to have this collection
over time, and then when it was the season for change in her life, she knew
that the cookie jars and all the craft supplies would move forward – I assured
her that I would buy a few of them as Christmas gifts for children in my life
that would enjoy them and take good care of her prizes. The sentiment seemed to please her.
So I went into the Estate Sale and picked out nine good
designs, and one vintage. (Vintage means
it is kind of homely and worth more money than you’d think it would be.) I thought I was done, because the sellers
were in a hurry to close shop at 3pm and they gave me the bum’s rush out the door. I got home and washed up the jars, setting
them to dry on the kitchen table prior to storing them for gift wrapping
later. I made a list of who was going to
get which jar, and realized I could do better.
I reached out to the selling company and made an appointment for a
second visit. It was different than the
first.
They weren’t watching over my shoulder like the first time
because they knew I was a buyer and not a scoper or a thief. They let me browse. I had time to think, to inspect, to imagine: I picked out seven more. That’s the thing about my personal
browsing/buying habits – a smart salesperson will just hand me a box and leave
me to my own devices. The minute someone
starts hovering in my zone I get edgy and can’t think straight. I need my mental space. I credit this quirk to an artsy, and
inexplicable streak of independence in me.
I don’t like working in groups when I do art or planning décor for my
home. I don’t even want a radio on. My brain gears shift more smoothly when I am
surrounded in a blanket of monastic silence… well, with the exception of the
slight “huffs” that dogs sleeping at my feet make.
So now I have these fun cookie jars and will be packing them
into boxes for Christmas presents. I
will be sorry to see them go – like when you meet new friends at a conference
on a weekend and you know that most likely you will never see them again: they are in my life for a brief moment, and
then onward they go. I look forward to
seeing the expressions on the faces of the people who will give them their new
homes. In the meantime I have been
bitten by a bug that has changed my chemistry:
I believe I am going to get more into estate sales and re-homing items. I really like it. I like knowing that someone’s treasures will
brighten the day of yet another person.
We may not lay up our treasures on earth where thieves and
rust destroys, as the Scripture says, but we can certainly borrow them for a
time. In another passage it says: “all good gifts around us are sent from
heaven above.” Well, maybe Heaven has a
24/7/365 yard sale going on – won’t that be fun?!
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