Katie didn’t come with us to this one – she had rehearsal for the show she’s stage managing.
(She, like her brother who now works for NBA-TV, is finding that being off-stage or off-camera has its own satisfactions.)
But the little boys did, and their company reinforced the other trouble with carting young ones to estate sales, the trouble beyond memento mori - house envy.
This house was in a heavily wooded area, with a stream on the property and a bridge, and oh, they wanted to live there, and it would be a dream come true…
Oh, please! Don’t I do enough!
Anyway. This sale was a bit sadder than the others so far, for I believe the man of the household – an elderly man – was present. I saw him a few times in various spots, looking out on the shoppers, sadly. As we left, he was on the front deck, and a woman was speaking earnestly to him…
…I know it’s so hard…she was saying…but I know when my mother died, I was just grateful….
I didn’t hear anymore.
We went on the second day, so everything was half price. This piece – in which the colors are more muted, not so primary as they seem in the photo – was five dollars. It says “Made in Italy” on the back, and it was set down among a collection of small ceramic dogs. It caught my eye immediately, I hesitated while Joseph examined the dogs, I decided I didn’t, of course, need it, but then it drew me back and I admitted that I loved it, irrationally. It evoked Fellini, the early 60′s, Rome…when perhaps all it should have evoked was Pier 1. I don’t know. I bought it, anyway.
I’m thinking the couple, the family was (is) Jewish – there weren’t any religious artifacts like menorah or teffilin around, but much of the art on the walls featured people dressed in Hasidic garb. There was a small etching above the fireplace that I also loved, in which three Orthodox scholars gathered closely around a volume for study. It was just a bit too much for me that day, even at half price. But today I wonder what in the world I was thinking, to not pull it gently off the wall and give it a new home, if it needed it. Or maybe – maybe – it was better for it to stay.
from the Universalis reading from St. Catherine of Siena: “You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you. But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. I desire above all to see you, the true light, as you really are.”
What a nice piece! Good find! But as you say, sometimes estate sales are very sad and people do that because they really have to (they need money or just could not take care of the huge place all alone), and not because they want to. It is upsetting to let go of something you like.
I got something Italian at an estate sale this weekend, too — a Giorgio Armani jacket that fits me perfectly. I had no profound moments while rooting through this obscenely lavish household of stuff, at least not beyond, “I sure am glad this rich lady was a size 10/12/14!”
At our final CSS Women’s Bible study last Tuesday (Gospel of John), our most senior participant (86) spoke about having to give up personal possessions upon entering a retirement community. Maudlin she was not: “I think it’s silly for people to try to hang onto everything they owned in their 40s or 50s.” My new hotflash aspiration.
That’s great!