I have too much stuff. I’m not proud of this, and I know it is a privilege to even own too much stuff. I also know that, at 77, the habit of buying is probably not going to go away anytime soon. I have curbed that buying, by quite a lot in the last year, as I haven’t been wearing anything but jeans and nobody besides my husband and local daughters have come for dinner, so I haven’t really cared what the house looked like or whether my cooking was inspired. The good news is that my bank account is a lot healthier with a lower level of buying.
Even so, I always keep a paper bag on the back stairs where I deposit sweaters with holes I’ve inexpertly darned, pants that have non-removable spots on them, and even my husband’s good winter overcoat. We don’t need it in California and besides, I can hardly get him out of chinos and zip up sweatshirts anyway. The contents of the bag go to Goodwill. But all seven of the Goodwill stores in the Bay Area have closed in the last month or so. The Salvation Army Thrift Stores have just begun to reopen. Their website says they are taking donations. But, this is a small thing I know, their closest locations are not nearly as convenient as my local Goodwill, which was seven blocks away.
With my good clothes that don’t fit any longer, or are slightly out of style, or just provoke an “Eh” rather than the joy that Marie Kondo says we should feel about our clothes, I take them to one of three consignment shops near my home. Two out of three of them have closed during the pandemic. I went into the surviving store earlier this week and was told that I could bring back my offerings in late May. The owner said she already had too much inventory. If I can’t sell or give away my clothes, cooking supplies, or perfectly good bed linens that don’t fit my newish mattress, what should I do with them?
Last week I began to clean out my bookshelves with trepidation. I planned to take the two bags of religious texts from my masters degree program which I finished in 1991, and the vast leadership library I used as a corporate consultant until 2013, to the Friends of the Berkeley Library bookstore. But would they take them? Their website said they were taking donations between 1 PM and 4 PM. I literally held my breath as I walked in the door bearing three bags of heavy hardback books. Two men in T shirts greeted me warmly and told me where to put the bags. They said they were happy to see me and my books and offered a receipt. If they only took size 9 womens’ shoes and the orange sweater I never should have bought!
What will happen to the people I have encountered at Goodwill over the years? Where will they find just the right mug for their coffee or jackets for their growing boys? Will this part of our economy rejuvenate or are we destined to take our used but perfectly good stuff to the one local outlet I have found — a clothing bin outside of my cleaners where a charity picks up its contents once a month.
