When I was a kid, I remember the first time I ever went into a thrift store, the feeling of amazement that places like that even existed blew my mind. There was so much stuff to look at and sift through. We were allowed to touch everything! Thrift stores in 1980s New Zealand were usually in big bare spaces, without climate control (i.e. freezing in the winter), there were no displays and bright lights of the other stores, it was all very mysterious and exciting, yet I found it strangely comforting, welcoming even.
Much like the comfort I find in libraries, the enjoyment of being in the space is equivalent to the enjoyment of the contents of the place.
So much history and knowledge all in one space. Obviously a library has the added appeal of being incredibly well organized, quiet, and somewhat civilized, overseen by a collection of librarians, who always know exactly where to find what you are looking for, and if they don’t know, they know how to find it.
I think being a librarian is my low-key dream job.
My memories of living in Auckland as a young adult in the 1990s are of roaming the junk and thrift stores in the central city area. Right in the price range of a broke waitress with aspirations of being an actress. There was one with big windows on lower Victoria St. as you headed up the hill, that always had the best cheap and tailored dresses from the 60s and 70s (before vintage was a thing), another couple of church thrift stores on K’Rd, and a couple along Ponsonby Rd I would visit as well. They all had that musty smell of forgotten stuff. On Ponsonby Rd, there was a general junk store in a two-storeyed old house. With wooden floors huge doorways and incredible views of the city from its perch on Ponsonby ridge, the giant windows on the back side of the building offering million-dollar views, the whole thing was a second-hand/junk store. A super fantastic place to find heaters, pots, pans, plugs, old tools, extension cords, bits of chain, random handles to replace whatever you accidentally broke in your house, lamps, or whatever else your house was missing. After being there for 30+ years, the prime location was too good to waste on a junk store, it was reimagined as a bar and venue space by the early 00s. K’Rd also had their flea markets on a Saturday morning, the street lined with people selling all sorts of stuff. One of the best ways to spend a Saturday morning. According to me anyway, my boyfriend at the time didn’t think so.
As a very “energy sensitive” person, I often prefer crowded and busy anonymous places. Inner cities mainly, busy streets, markets, food halls, etc, For whatever reason, the places that gather so much energy feel comfortable to me. I feel energized by the collective.
Smaller personal spaces often leave me feeling drained…or whatever the predominant energy of the room or group is. It literally sucks the life out of me.
Most of the time, unless I’m mentally prepared, I find it’s easier to just avoid such situations.
However, now that I’m more mature, I can define my own boundaries without feeling like there’s something wrong with me because I don’t feel the same way about a lot of situations that others do. And that’s OK.
But it is still so nice to drift into a library or a thrift store, by myself, for ages. Time slips away into what could be compared to the flow state. Some of my best memories as a single girl in Auckland with a couple of hours between classes or jobs on a rainy afternoon are disappearing into the City Library or one of the thrift stores tucked in the back streets of Ponsonby and Grey Lynn.
It’s also about the unknown potential of discovering all sorts of treasures and interesting things that have had full and rich histories, once pride of place on a mantel or display cabinet in someone’s home, for years. Getting lost in other people’s memories and the reverence with which said belongings were once treated is a worthwhile timewaster for me.
Yet now, in a second-hand store, it’s lost its value and looks like all the other stuff. It’s just another item on a shelf, something with a tag tied on it haphazardly, or a sticker declaring the perceived value to the world. Possessions once treasured, are now just stuff. Because really, the only thing that gives most items meaning, is the value the owner places on them.
When I managed a Salvation Army Family Store, I had an employee I seldom assigned to work on the pile of donations that streamed in all day long in the back. Simply because she would take forever to “process” anything. Every single thing, she would pick up and turn over in her hands, drinking it in, oohing and ahhing, always remembering someone she knew having one, sometimes even tearing up. “Oh look…somebody loved this very much…” It was painful to watch, I’m sure this woman would go home and be emotionally drained after one of those afternoons. I could never understand why it was so emotional to her. – Don’t worry, I never said anything, but I dreaded to think what her home looked like. I imagined she was the family member everyone would give the stuff they didn’t want to, knowing she would keep it, forever and ever and ever, not bearing to part with anything.
I, too, always loved that stuff. Not quite the way she did, but I loved checking things out when I worked the pile, inspecting them for damage, brand names, etc.
I have often wondered whether or not it is sad to see such items in a thrift store. I personally don’t feel sad when I see things that obviously took pride of place in someone’s home in a thrift store.
Do I feel sad when I see those sorts of things in the trash? Yes. But in a thrift store? Nope. I’m glad it’s getting a second chance.
Years ago, I bought stuff from thrift stores and resold them, which satisfied two needs I had at the time:
Number One was that I could supplement my low-paying hotel job and make some extra money, and Number Two was to vanish into the depths of various thrift stores around town as a short reprieve from my crumbling life as I witnessed its very unraveling seemingly powerless to do anything about it. The focus of finding things to sell online was just enough brain activity that I still could process what was happening to my world. Who needs therapy when you can aimlessly wander through a thrift store?
I also love Thrift Store clothing. Sure you have to sift through overcrowded racks of clothing that generally has that neglected, unworn for years, smell. There is an awful lot of designer clothing that is just sitting on those racks. Not high-end designer labels, but decent higher-priced clothing stores that sell $200 pairs of jeans. The articles are well made and cut to fit a woman’s body, for longer than this season. There is no thin-material fast fashion crapola in there. Which is wonderfully soothing to my soul.
I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s true.
Much in the same way as I like the anonymity of inner city living for the broad and diverse energy, often finding smaller pockets and communities suffocating with their energy and general superficialities, I like the authenticity of thrift stores.
I’m repelled by the glitz and surface-level existence many find comfortable and have always preferred the areas where people don’t speak English as a first language, dive bars, alternative cafes, and hole-in-the-wall eateries. The places where humanity just is; the good and the bad, the sublime and the ridiculous.
For some reason, I find the low-quality, shoddily put-together seasonal crap fest you find in those popular outlet stores more offensive than an overcrowded thrift store crammed with racks and clothing you have to fight to get on and off the rack. Give me good quality used clothing over brand new fast fashion any day. I mean seriously, aren’t we over that yet?
It’s the cheap coats and bags that get me. Sure they look seasonable, but don’t take that winter coat to the snow. It’ll probably rip before you get there anyway. If the lining hasn’t already disintegrated. And the cheap synthetic material looks nice, but don’t touch it, because it appears they are not made to be worn outside, and then it’s peeling, ripping, discoloring, or just coming apart at the seams.
And never actually warm enough to be useful. Or so synthetic and nasty that you’re left sweaty and clammy at the same time, always teetering between chilled and sweaty.
As a handbag girl myself, I can not resist the handbag section of a thrift store. But alas, gone are the days of well-made genuine leather, suede, or even canvas, beautifully lined handbags. Now it’s mostly the horribly aged, nasty remnants of last year’s glossy outlet store offerings, with split zippers and disintegrating handles.
Although who am I kidding, it just makes a more interesting hunt. And handling all those cheap and nasty renditions, sure makes the well-made ones feel different in your hands.
I think if you’re paying attention, you can just tell something is worth pulling off the rack or out the the bin for by touch alone. It feels like a different energy in your hand.
Yes, whoa, just crossed over to woo-woo land there didn’t I?
It’s all connected, though. All of it, no matter how hard you work to compartmentalize.
But I digress.
The thrill of the rummage.
It’s no surprise then that I spent five years of my life managing thrift stores, first a Salvation Army Family Store in the south island of NZ,(cannot speak highly enough of the Sallies, working for them was amazing and I was heartbroken to leave), and then a not-for-profit animal league thrift store in a Coastal South Carolina town. It was a fundraising initiative for the animal clinic and rescue center, volunteers included all sorts of used-to-be’s from founding members of tech companies to university professors, successful business owners, and business people. All still so attached to their previous identities in the business world, that’s what they led with. Guaranteed to share that with you within the first five minutes of any conversation. Even if it was 25+ years ago. So, besides the obvious screaming differences in the general culture and attitudes of volunteers and customers, it was all very similar as well.
There is something familiar about the people drawn to second-hand stores in general, especially the volunteers. Again it speaks to the authenticity and realness of people, people who appreciate these cast-out belongings for what they are. Perfectly good stuff, sans glossy packaging. It’s funny how even the most expensive item can be diminished by being discarded and tossed in with the riff-raff. And how exciting it is to find that valued item.
A good analogy for life really. There is always treasure, you just have to look.
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