Five years ago, when my husband and I found ourselves overwhelmed by the size and pace of our life in the city, and the ceaseless flow of money and things and time required to sustain it, we moved to an isolated small town, halfway out to the tip of Cape Cod. We put most of our possessions, most of our city lives, including clothing and a basement playroom of toys, in storage. Seven containers of things - frozen in time, as if waiting for us to return.
The Gift House tells the story of our first years on Cape Cod, as my family adjusted to small town life and long New England winters, and gives an account of my volunteer job working at a small salvage operation on the grounds of our town dump.
This tiny building — nothing more than a shack, really – is where people leave things that are too good to throw out. Things that they don’t need anymore, but are still useful. Things that you could sell on Ebay or at a yard sale, if you had the energy or the time to do that, or maybe you tried to sell at a yard sale except it rained. Things in boxes, things from storage. Things you bought by mistake and were too busy to return. Things you were given, and loathed. Thing you cleared out of your mother’s house after she went to a nursing home and thought she still had a house, but didn’t.
On the Cape, every town has one of these salvage operations and they go by different names: The Swap Shop, The Dump Shack, The Dump-tique, The Dump Mall, The Free House. Where I live, it is called, The Gift House. The range and array of stuff that arrives here is stunning, heart-stopping, and unpredictable.
You can come across almost anything – clam-digging waders, boat anchors, lobster buoys, outboard motors, skill saws, barn doors, TVs, phones, lamps, microwave ovens, blenders, kitchen china, hardware, tools, toys, cribs, hamster cages, paintings, old Christmas ornaments, cranberry harvesting equipment, bicycles, jigsaw puzzles, books. It would be almost impossible to describe them all, claim they were worthless or priceless, or organize them into categorizes of purpose, in anything shorter than an encyclopedia. Everything comes to the Gift House. Life comes. Life goes. And everything is free.
The Gift House: A Life in Salvage
Book in Progress
The Gift House: A Life in Salvage
Five years ago, when my husband and I found ourselves overwhelmed by the size and pace of our life in the city, and the ceaseless flow of money and things and time required to sustain it, we moved to an isolated small town, halfway out to the tip of Cape Cod. We put most of our possessions, most of our city lives, including clothing and a basement playroom of toys, in storage. Seven containers of things - frozen in time, as if waiting for us to return.
The Gift House tells the story of our first years on Cape Cod, as my family adjusted to small town life and long New England winters, and gives an account of my volunteer job working at a small salvage operation on the grounds of our town dump.
This tiny building — nothing more than a shack, really – is where people leave things that are too good to throw out. Things that they don’t need anymore, but are still useful. Things that you could sell on Ebay or at a yard sale, if you had the energy or the time to do that, or maybe you tried to sell at a yard sale except it rained. Things in boxes, things from storage. Things you bought by mistake and were too busy to return. Things you were given, and loathed. Thing you cleared out of your mother’s house after she went to a nursing home and thought she still had a house, but didn’t.
On the Cape, every town has one of these salvage operations and they go by different names: The Swap Shop, The Dump Shack, The Dump-tique, The Dump Mall, The Free House. Where I live, it is called, The Gift House. The range and array of stuff that arrives here is stunning, heart-stopping, and unpredictable.
You can come across almost anything – clam-digging waders, boat anchors, lobster buoys, outboard motors, skill saws, barn doors, TVs, phones, lamps, microwave ovens, blenders, kitchen china, hardware, tools, toys, cribs, hamster cages, paintings, old Christmas ornaments, cranberry harvesting equipment, bicycles, jigsaw puzzles, books. It would be almost impossible to describe them all, claim they were worthless or priceless, or organize them into categorizes of purpose, in anything shorter than an encyclopedia. Everything comes to the Gift House. Life comes. Life goes. And everything is free.
Take a look at the Gift House blog and you’ll see what I mean.
Click the image above and go to my Gift House Blog.