Sandalwood

I got up early Saturday morning determined to go to an estate sale. I put the address in my maps app and when I found out how long the drive was I was hesitant. I had the morning free and knowing I had nothing planned I went for the drive. Eight on a Saturday morning heading to Fort Worth. There is something about an estate sale that gets my attention. It's a totally different feeling than stopping at a garage sale. I arrive to my destination come in through the back of the house. Nothing catches my eyes not even the bin of dollar books. What is so special about an estate sale? Let me tell you my version of why I enjoy going to one. You walk into someone's home. You get to know that person by what they had in their home. I take it like a small museum of a persons life. The things they collected, the places they have been too, or the way they lived their life. In most cases it's when who lived in this home are no longer here to tell you what they were doing when they went on vacation and bought that cup, what they cooked in that now vintage crockpot, and what party they went to that they wore that dress. Many memories lived now for sale. When you leave to never return you leave with nothing. All your possessions get left behind. You will not know who gets what or if it gets trashed. Through these past few months I've learned to part with my memories. Trying to become a minimalist is hard but refreshing.

As I walk into the kitchen through the living room and pass a hallway I make it to a back bedroom. The floor was filled with beautiful shoes still in their boxes. Shoes only meant to be worn by someone that loved fashion. Shoes knowing that they were probably over twenty five years old. Beautiful colors some that would belong in a fashion magazine worn my models on the runway. She wore every shoe in that room yet managed to keep them vibrant and neat. I asked for the sizes but none could fit my feet. For someone like me to have been able to walk this ground with a pair of those shoes would have had even my mom asking were I got those shoes from and how much did they cost me? I was inside a home where a fashionista had lived.

Before I was about to leave I made it back to the kitchen next to it was the garage made into a din. A table full of jewelry was on display. A big box made to put earrings in was sitting on the table. I started to go through them. Earrings I knew I would never see again. Earrings that matched some of those shoes in the other room. I was going through them when a husband and wife came in asking about the owner of the house. I tried not to be nosey but they were standing five feet away from me. The owner of the house had been diagnosed with cancer this past October and she lost the battle. She lived alone, her brother in another state and a sister living in east Texas. When she found out she was sick she wanted to stay. She didn't want to live with her siblings. Here it was almost three months later and she was gone. Her friend of forty years checked in on her from time to time. She never had children and her family all lived far away from her. Her friend became a family friend and she was the one in charge of selling her things and in two weeks putting the house up on the market.

I'd like to say that the bracelets were a gift considering how much she gave them to me for.

I didn't say a word, didn't even look up to see them. I tried not to feel sad. I was about to leave when I stopped to look at the earrings, had I not stopped I would have never heard the story. I don't know why I'm meant to hear some stories.  I waited for them to walk away to check out. I got me seven pairs of earrings. I picked out the ones I knew I'd wear. She gave them to me for fifty cents a pair. I did ask that one question some of you might be thinking? I asked if she ever married? The person at an estate sale is normally not related or friend of the home so she told me she didn't know. She wanted to know if I wanted to ask the friend telling her story. I said no. In a way it was best that I didn't know. I just wanted to know if she had loved that great love that we get to live at least once in our lifetime. But I'll settle with knowing she had the love of fashion. The kind of love that shows in the colors of her outside soul.

Sandalwood the house on the corner in a Fort Worth street angled to meet both sides of the street for whomever passed by wouldn't have imagined the rainbow that lived inside.