Garage Sale Jones

The days have been beautiful. Partly cloudy skies with the clouds skittering across shimmering blue. Breezes blowing softly, clean, pure and cool. People are cleaning house, sorting through basements and attics and getting new furniture, for inside and out. There are garage sales cropping up, and I want to stop. I see the cardboard signs and I start to think that maybe there’s something for me. Something like the plastic hose hang- up I found at a garage sale in Owatonna, when it was already on my ‘to buy’ list. I needed to tidy up the hose laying about the driveway. I may need some help to curb my impulse to go to garage sales. I don’t know exactly why I long to buy someone else’s junk for only 1 dollar. But I have gotten some mighty cool stuff at garage sales.

Like the amazing brass chandelier that I have hanging in my bedroom. Or the beautiful blue retro crystal necklace that was for sale on someone’s front lawn. I pondered for a while there, wondering whether or not I should spend 10 dollars on it. Wondering about whose mom or grandmother owned this, and was it precious to them? I brought it home and my daughters thought it was amazing! My best garage sale find? An LP by Bill Evans. That was a magical moment. I was looking through bins of LP’s (back when I still had a turntable and speakers). A stocky guy with a beard pulled a Bill Evans LP out of a box full and said, “Do you know Bill Evans?” I said, “Hmm, no,” wondering a bit who this weird guy was talking to me. He went on, “If you like jazz you have to listen to this. I have this already, but if you don’t want it, I’m going to buy it just to have another copy.” He was a good salesman, I bought it.

I took it home and put it on the turntable and I had no idea what I was in for. The name of the LP:You Must Believe in Spring. It made me believe in Spring and Bill Evans. I became a true believer, one listen, and I was hooked. Bill was one of the most amazing jazz pianists ever born. This garage sale changed my life, really. I sometimes wonder if the weird guy was an angel maybe. Just showing up there at this garage sale to turn me on to Bill Evans.

Thinking back, I got my turntable at a garage sale, too, another miracle of sorts. I was newly separated, and my heart was breaking. I’d been married for 15 years to someone I truly loved and it just wasn’t working. Back then, I was told that things my ex did were emotional abuse. I know now, that he never intended to hurt anyone, especially me, and it would be nice to blame someone for that ‘whole lotta hurtin’ but hurtin is an essential part of life. Who knew it would take me so much time to understand that sometimes relationships only last so long? And that that’s OK. No villains.

But back then, when I still married, and I wanted a turntable to go with our stereo receiver and the hardwood Jensen speakers, my husband said, “We don’t need a turntable, we have a CD player.” He just didn’t understand that I wanted to listen to my records. To look at their worn cardboard covers, to feel the paper, to glide the black disk out of the white paper liner and to place it on the turning table, to delight in the little pops and scratches. I wasn’t very good at sticking up for myself, for getting what I wanted. I’d back down way too easily, so when I did get something good, it seemed like a miracle.

The spring after my divorce, I was wandering about Owatonna with a broken heart and I found a turntable at a garage sale. A Pioneer, circa 1985, not in bad shape, the plastic cover was cracked. A minor cosmetic defect. My ex, Steve, had left me nearly everything in the house, including the stereo receiver and the hardwood Jensen speakers. I plugged everything in and it all worked. James Taylor, Sweet Baby James and Laura Nyro roared through the living room and my heart stopped hurting for a bit. I was newly single, and maybe I’d get through this just fine. Maybe I’d start getting to do what I wanted to do, without anyone to tell me ‘no’ anymore. Maybe being alone wouldn’t be so bad after all. Maybe I'd learn to believe in myself.