The Things We Leave Behind

Yesterday, I went junkin' to get out of the house.  I usually really enjoy it.  I've been feeling pooish the last three or four days, apparently the run up to a migraine that woke me up early this morning, and so maybe that's the reason I looked at everything differently yesterday.

I browsed as I usually did, but I kept being struck by the little things, the cut glass knickknacks, the chalk wall plaque of the smiling bird, the assorted rolling pins casually lying in a Pyrex bowl, the rhinestone brooches, and the tattered toy biplane hanging from the ceiling.  All those things had belonged to someone else.  At some point, presumably, all those things were valued by someone else.  Now, they were piled haphazardly into the various booths of the flea market, priced with a small sticker or tag, and waiting on usefulness to come again.

Some of the items moved me more than others.  One booth had a kitchen's worth of cast iron.  The skillets were crusted in rust.  The Dutch oven was, as well.  I picked up a couple of pieces with an eye to finding something to refinish and put back into use, but I couldn't stop thinking about how many meals, how many family moments, those abandoned vessels represented.  I wondered if whomever used them worried over them, kept them shiny and well-greased, enjoyed the heft of them as they took them out of the cabinet the way I do with my own pieces.  It made me sad.

A young fluffy couple, both of whom were entirely too overly groomed to be junkin' in an unairconditioned building in 95-degree weather, were sweeping up and down the aisles, noses firmly in the air.  The ridiculously preppy man snidely commented to his ridiculously preppy mate that "this place seems like a horror movie."  And even though I didn't agree with the reasons behind his comment, for the first time ever, there was something horrible about one of my favorite places.  Everything around me was something that had been left behind.

I started thinking about my own house, all the things I treasure, my collection of ceramics from Japan, my bits and bobs of jewelry from various trips, my Fiestaware, all those PEZ I've collected, my own cast iron.  What will happen to it when I'm gone?  I have no one to leave it to, no daughter to teach my grandmother's cornbread recipe and skillet with, no son to whom I can give my grandfather's WWII uniform or the knife my other grandfather made from a bayonet and stacked glass circles from the windshield of a downed Italian plane.  Some day, someone will have to come in, slog through, box up, and all my things will wind up in some rag and bone shop, too.  That old saying from Lamentations came to mind, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity..."

I forced myself to put the thought away.  I found an interesting and amusing pair of old sunglasses, a purple whisky bottle for my bottle trees.  As I walked out to the vehicle with my purchases, though, I looked at the old bathtubs sitting around the edge of the parking area, and it returned with a vengeance.  I had to look away.