recycling memories

This post was inspired by Lady Cordelia who writes about the new passions in her life, including thrifting.

The memory popped into my mind with such a sense of familiarity I couldn't believe I hadn't made the connection before. 

For five years now, my mother and I have saved our treasures, set up tables, priced items, prepared our change, greeted strange faces, endured the rain, sun, or sweltering heat, and counted our earnings at the end of two days.  Yep, that's the annual garage sale.

We've done it each year because I have growing babies who leave behind large toys, furniture, supplies, and clothes.  Piles and piles of clothes.  Those items that will suit others quite well because they've been little used.  We do it because I love to declutter on a regular basis and so does she.  We do it because the little bit of cash we earn helps create some amazing summer-fun memories for my children - ice cream, swimming at the community pool, amusement parks, baseball games.  We do it because I can't bear to throw things away that someone else may want, need, or use in creative ways. 

I don't have babies anymore and older children don't have big stuff.  The stock has dwindled, leaving us asking each other if we should do it again next year.  We do manage to pull items together, but it is not much.  We ask this question as the crowd quiets down at the end of day two.  We are tired and hot.  

This year, my mother's response to my asking: I don't do this because I need to.  I do it because I enjoy doing it with you.

And there is the memory - my mother and her mother.  Each summer for many.  In my grandmother's driveway.  Both women, notepad in hand, on which are placed color-coded pricing stickers.  A metal lock box for their earnings and for making change.  The tables and tables of items needing a new home and hoping not to be destined for the landfill (or burn pile as was the case at Grandma's).  The chatter and buzzing from the customers.  The small town hellos and gossip.  The kids, me and my cousins, running around, playing on the side of the house, enjoying our lazy summer days.

Perhaps memories can be recycled as well.  A memory, remade into a new one.  A time shared by two women of one generation, then repeated in the next.  Isn't it funny how life somehow means more in a memory or the sharing of a memory than in the thing itself?  In this simple garage sale, I've stumbled on a real treasure - recycling moments and memories with my mother!