On the afternoon of December 5th, I found myself standing in a dead man’s home. Strangers ebbed in and out of the rooms like ghosts, picking through boxes of old records and underwear, holding blazers and monogrammed shirts up to their chests to gauge the fit. They opened medicine cabinets and lifted toilet seats in the bathroom, ran their fingers along the shower door to test for grime. They pawed through drawers in the kitchen and peered in the pantry. They opened books and touched paintings, sat on beds and tried on shoes. It was my first experience with an estate sale, and I was shocked at the callousness of it all.
I used to imagine that death was a clean slate, that anything left behind was packed up in neat boxes by men in coveralls and carted to some warehouse or auction house far away. That day produced two realizations: First, that unless bequeathed in a will, most possessions are picked over like carrion. Second, my wife and I are vultures.
We found ourselves at this particular estate sale to shop for our move from Brooklyn to Cos Cob, a small hamlet near Greenwich. In desperate need of furniture, it felt like the perfect place to acquire some high end pieces at a bargain, but by the time we arrived, most of the good stuff
had been claimed or moved out of the house. In the end, we left with a mug, a book on Italian art, and a Q3 Lehman Brothers deck from 1983 we found in the upstairs office. You can’t win ‘em all
Despite the house being relatively empty, it dripped with memories. Family photos, books, mantle curios. It was clear that whoever lived here had no shame in adorning their space with items they had accrued over the years, and instead of producing a feeling of clutter, it felt like a home. It was lived in.
Call me dramatic, but moving can feel like death. It is, after all, a transition, though I’d prefer the kind that doesn’t require you to carry your belongings with you. Still, it forces a kind of discipline: what do you bring along, and what do you leave behind?
My wife is a collector. Not of baseball cards or stamps, but of memories. Like most men, I find myself unsentimental when it comes to belongings. To me, they get in the way of new memories and opportunities. My first apartment had only a bed, a couch, and a few Bud Lights in the fridge. Functional? You bet. Comfortable? Not so much. With this mindset still firmly in place on the morning of our move, I found myself frustrated as I watched box after box of tchotchkes be loaded into the van. I was unable, or unwilling, to reconcile how someone could be attached to old cocktail napkins from a restaurant we loved, or a set of decorative candles found at a thrift store in Paris. That all changed when we arrived in our new space.
With a blank canvas in front of us, I realized how comforting it can be to fill a void with memories. Even before all of the boxes were unpacked, our new apartment started to feel like home. I’m not advocating for you to become a hoarder, but don’t be afraid of letting your life spill into the corners of a space.
Whatever you do, just remember to throw out any old condoms or suppositories in the bathroom before you die. You never know who will be combing through your life.
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