(re-post)
"Why buy anything new …." was a pondering kind of statement that came to mind as I was sitting at the kitchen table and my eyes caught in an admiring gaze upon an old, exquisitely crocheted item that I had recently purchased at a flea market and draped over a chair.
"Why buy anything new when I can get something so lovely, " I was thinking. And then a piggy back thought : when had I last bought something new. I began to look around the kitchen and then that question changed to - what had I bought new.
After a great deal of looking at the things in the kitchen I realized, out of the hundreds, I had bought four things new. This spoon was one of them and the man who sold it to me many years ago had carved it from an old tree, was actually carving it when I first saw it and I bought it as soon as it was finished.
The other three were a set of cutlery from Pier One Import in Toronto twenty-five years ago, a Salt lamp from a touristy store in Sidney BC when my brother was on a visit out here two years ago and purchased because he had one and liked it very much, four pottery bowls made by an artist who lives a block or so away and was selling some of his work at the Fernwood Tuesday Market two summers ago.
Everything else, except a few things that were received as gifts, was bought at garage sales or thrift stores or flea markets or rummage sales or church bazaars or found in a free box.
Why? It's a habit acquired many years ago that became a lifestyle. It's satisfying, meaningful, liberating, fibre archeology, creative, economical, exciting, often surprising , thought-provoking, challenging, environmentally-friendly, educational, an adventure, a means of shopping the world without leaving home. And it is fun.