So I haven’t announced this in Invasive Thoughts yet, but the truth is that we’re moving to Kansas City, Missouri. The owner of our well-loved, amazing downtown house here in SA did not want to sell us the house, and we wanted to buy a house, so we found an old house in Kansas City where our family lives. In order to reduce the moving load, I decided to host a yard free. So I bought a large piece of poster board and wrote in marker: What’s better than a yard sale? A yard free!
Yard sales are often more of a hassle then they’re worth because you have to put a price on everything and then figure out what to do with stuff that doesn’t sell, and you never make much money from them anyway. So why not give things away to people who might have a need or use for them? I thought it would be fun and heartwarming.
I didn’t want to just put things out on the curb like trash. I wanted to present it like an actual sale, placing things strategically around the yard in an attractive way. I laid a large blanket on the ground and placed old vinyl records, CDs, videos, and picture frames on it. I put up a wooden drying rack and draped clothing over it. I placed several end tables out and covered them with trinkets, jewelry, birdhouses, and dishes. I even put out my old camera that I used before I got a digital, and because I’m a pack rat (a trait both inherited and learned from my grandfather), the camera had its original box along with the manual and carrying case. Really good stuff!
I decided I’d sit outside and man the “free”, see who came by, talk with neighbors, soak up the sun. And do you know what? My “Yard Free” fantasy came true today. It was just how I imagined it:
First to come by was our neighbor from around the corner who walks his dog every day. He snatched up the camera and a few other items excitedly, and talked with us awhile. While he and the dog sniffed around, a momentum began to build. People on foot began to come up and take things here and there. A young guy from around the corner, a new and soon-to-be old neighbor, took all the cool stuff. He grabbed all the components of the Absinthe kit, complete with four glasses and a groovy sugar-cube spoon. He also took my sparkly crystal necklace and the magazine rack. It was fun meeting a new neighbor and I thought how he’d make a good addition to our social group. Then he came back with his brother, also from the neighborhood, and they took a few more things.
After Valero agreed to let me hang a sign on the pole in their parking lot, people began to drive by and stop. From one truck a little girl came out and chose a little heart-shaped box and a necklace for herself. A wandering vagrant with a shopping cart took only one small item, the pocketknife corkscrew. Then a family stopped by in a large truck and took half of everything: three women comprising two generations rummaged through all items meticulously, exclaiming that Uncle might want the red comforter for his bed, and Lina might like the stretch pants. They also took the plastic chairs and the large end table, thanking us a thousand times as they left.
Meanwhile the sun took over the yard and I languished, thinking of the three and a half-years spent in this house acquiring relationships with neighbors; there is definitely a community here among the few residents who live on this city block in downtown SA. I will miss this spot dearly.
After the women cleaned house, I went inside and found a few more items to put out; I was enjoying the energy of moving things along, and of making others happy with our free “treasures”. Everyone was grateful, offering “thank you’s” and “bless you’s” and some asking “why?”.
One neighbor took a dart-board and a necklace for his teenage grandson, and one woman collected all the free books, saying she’d “pass them along to others” after she’d finished reading them. Another woman, who stopped with her husband and collected the bathroom products, said that she lives around the corner and walks her dog frequently past our house and that her dog always likes to come up the hill in our front yard and chew on the pecans. I had never seen her or her dog before so they must come by during the week when I’m at work.
After things slowed for awhile, Chris and I sat in the yard enjoying the sun and talking when our neighbor from across the street came over to find out what we were doing and for once I was not trying to avoid her nagging antics. What did it matter anymore, we were moving? Our cats would no longer be running across the street worrying her and we’d no longer be laying around inside on Saturdays instead of picking up the trash that has blown into the yard. She laughed as she examined our yard of stuff, telling tales about her own problem of having too much stuff. Then she took the cat-scratching post and left.
Of course the fact that this has been such a beautiful, sunny Sunday in San Antonio has made the whole affair enjoyable on its own, but I’m convinced that having a “yard free” is the way to go from now on. It’s not that we’re doing the neighborhood any major service, but we’re helping recycle amongst our community and getting to enjoy the immediate response. It’s certainly a nice note on which to leave this neighborhood.