Estate Sale

   There is really nothing else like an estate sale. Have you ever been? It is like a yard sale except it is always indoors. Sometimes it happens when people are moving. But most often it is when someone has died. Someone old. People are hired to run a sale out of the house. Some doors are closed and have signs that say "keep door closed".
   It occurs to me now, it also happens when someone old has had to leave their home. They just had one at my grandpa's house. My grandpa has not died, he has gone to live with my uncle.
   Last week, I went to an estate sale. It was at a house around the corner from me. I had some free time one day and there were signs and I followed them there. It was a small house and in ways it was caught in a time warp as old people's homes often are. I love old people's homes. I love when most everything they own, the have owned for a long time. Old people don't redecorate or renovate, they are comfortable. Things are "outdated" but well cared for.
   I am making great generalizations here, I realize. Let me say, in my experience at estate sales in the Hudson Valley in NY, this seems to be the case. I am sure it varies as all things do.
   At the sale, the books were still on their shelves, there were no personal photographs or items around, but there were clothes still on their hangers in the closets, the kitchen was closed off and the dishes were laid out on a table. I have gone to estate sales where the dishes are still in the cabinets, the sliver ware in the drawers and it is all for sale. It is all for the buying and the looking. It feels strange to delight in such a thing. I wonder if the former owner of these things has died, if they are annoyed with people picking through their things. I guess if I were old and had passed away and there was an estate sale in my house it might bug me. And make me glad, depending on who took what. I also suppose if I were dead, I would not care about such things because everything would finally make sense and none of it would have to do with "things". But our things in this life bring us comfort or anxiety or pleasure. We attach ourselves to things and we "love" them. Or we don't want them anymore but can't seem to let go of them. Things are funny like that. For me anyway.
   There was a room in the house that had a walk in closet. It was full of baskets. Maybe 100 or more baskets. And in the back of the closet there were some boxes that looked like they had not been opened. I opened them and found stationary and old wedding cards and a wedding program from what I assumed was the owners wedding. There was a composition notebook filled with a child's writing, just lists and lists of names. There was a photograph of two women standing inside the house, downstairs, smiling together. One was an older woman and she looked familiar. I decided it was her house, her things and I had probably seen her around town. I put the photograph back where I found it.
   She made hooked rugs. While I was there, the woman running the sale pulled them out and laid them on the floor. There were about 10 or so, maybe a dozen. I picked out four of them. They were $5.00 each. Hand made. Three with flowers and one with an eagle. I also found a pile of white cotton curtains with white pom pom trim. Many windows worth, maybe the whole house, so many of them. $10.00 for all of them. I bought those too. I found a box in another room and opened it. Inside were ladies gloves. Leather and that Isotoner sort of glove, in browns, reds, black and tan. I tried them all on. I bought two pairs, $1.00 each.
   There were other people milling around the whole time I was there. Some old people too and I wondered if they were thinking about their own things and their own estate sales that might happen some day. If they bought anything, maybe those things would end up in their estate sale. Maybe the things I bought there will end up in my estate sale some day too.
   There were christmas decorations, old paper plates, christmas and thanksgiving themed. I thought about the entertaining she had done. And wondered if anyone would take these plates and napkins. I almost did.
   I asked the woman running the sale if the house would be sold. She said she thought the son of the owner was moving in. I wondered what he was like.
   I left with my treasures. It was a Saturday and a sign told me that everything would be half off on Sunday.
   I brought the rugs and curtains and gloves home. I found a spot for each rug. One is under my desk in my studio and keeps my feet warm, one is in the kitchen in front of the kitchen sink and cushions my feet when I stand there and will keep them warm this winter, one I gave to Joseph, the one with the eagle, to put under his desk in his studio to keep his feet warm. The fourth and most beautiful, is white with a colorful bunch of flowers in the center, I put in the living room on the other side of my four year old's train table. When he came home with his father, he walked in the front door, kicked off his sneakers and walked right up to the rug, clasped his hands in front of his chest and said, "Oh Mommy! Thank you for this cozy rug!" He pulled a pillow and a blanket off of the couch and laid down on the rug. I think he has played on it every day since.
   A few months ago, before my uncle arranged the estate sale at my grandfather's house, he let me come to the house while he was there with my aunt, clearing our their childhood things and taking things that were important to them, after he had packed away all the things that were still important to my grandpa. It was very much like an estate sale except it was before all of the personal things had been removed. I found amazing black and white photographs of my grandparents when they were teenagers with their friends, playing baseball, having picnics and on vacation. I found a box of glasses that had been my great grandfather's. A tin full of my mother's dancing shoes from when she was very small. An old Halloween decoration, a paper skeleton shade for a lamp. I took a bunch of old thread bare towels. Pretty old dishes, Christmas cloth napkins. Random things. I also ended up with my great grandfather's desk and my grandfathers scroll saw. I filled my car. Blankets, a pair of overalls, magnets, drinking glasses, a sewing box.

   My grandfather was there but I don't know if he knew exactly what we were doing there and I don't think he was crazy about it all. These were his things and he was not gone. Maybe he thought we were just packing them up for him. I am not sure. I love having my grandparents things. I love the connection these things have to them and to my great grandparents. It is amazing to me that I can put my great grandfather's glasses on my face and look through the same lenses he did. These objects are connected to another time and other people. And these people, unlike the people whose homes I have been in for estate sales, are my people. People who made me, people I love. And I love their old towels. I probably used those towels to dry off at their old house in Valley Stream after swimming in their backyard pool when I was very small. 

   I like to think of the lady who made the hooked rugs being happy that they have found a good home and are so loved. I like to think my great grandfather likes to see his glasses on my face. And that my grandfather is glad I will use his scroll saw. When I look at my grandmother's sewing box, I see my grandmother. Some day, someone may run an estate sale in my home when I am gone and maybe someone will buy my grandmother's sewing box and they will not know it was hers, but maybe it will delight them because it is pretty cool the way it folds up and holds so many spools of thread, sewing needles and pins. And they will know it is old and had a history and maybe they will even use my thread that is in the box, just as I have been using my grandma's. And me and my grandma will smile together and be glad.