(damaged) goods, broken ( _____ ).

the great about thrifting is that you find a lot of really good stuff. the not so great thing about thrifting is that sometimes, most of the time, the really great things one finds are damaged. i once found the most amazing cream-colored fox-haired coat from the early 70‘s. it had a few tiny yellowish spots on it and i knew i could never sell it in my vintage store, so i had to let it go. and then there are the books with torn covers. rare record albums with scratches. knick knacks with slight chips. it’s a rigorous game, thrifting. the good stuff is hard to come by and gets snatched up by the lucky few. fortunately, we are all not looking for the exact same things; each of us have standards and some idea of  what we can and cannot live with. if i find something that i absolutely love and it has minor imperfections, i will keep it for myself. if i am shopping for my online store, or getting a gift for a friend, i only choose the best of the best. and this fact – how i settle for things that aren’t necessarily the best for me– has given me great pause of late, my dear loyal reader. i will seek it, i will keep it, i will rationalize it, i will make it okay even if it is not, thrift store find or otherwise. cracked? OKAY! broken? BRING IT! damaged goods? I’LL TAKE 100! selling myself short is getting me nowhere and yet, it’s such a comfortable place for me to be. when i was a little girl, my great grandma edna ross would make cornbread in this little orange bowl. (i grew up in the deep south and cornbread was/is a big part of every southern meal). the bowl turned out to be a fire king, and a brand that i covet and delight when i find in my rummages these days. this particular little bowl is what she “started” the cornbread in and was not perfect as it was a bit too small and much of the glaze had worn off the bottom. she complained about this little bowl every single time she made cornbread. i always wondered to myself why she would continue to use it — she had many other bowls perfectly suited for her cornbread-making needs. maybe it was just easier for her to complain, rather than change it. maybe she had grown used to it, even though she knew she could have picked something a little more appropriate. i guess sometimes we go deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to seeing things as they really are. sometimes we settle for the torn, worn, cracked and imperfect. sometimes that’s okay. and sometimes, it may be a better idea to look inward at our imperfect selves and strive, strive! to correct what is broken, what is damaged within us. after my grandmother sarah died, i took possession of her mother’s little fire king bowl. the glaze is indeed gone, but my memory of it’s meaning is still very much intact.  

©littlebrownbutterfly