The Echo Times: the journey continues

Welcome to our weekly exploration. We bring together four unique perspectives to answer one thought-provoking question each week, sharing insights, life philosophies, and reflections from the lake and beyond.

THE ECHO TIMES

WRITTEN WAVES

 

What the Waves Leave Behind

By Bert Russell

A wave reaches the shore, leaves something behind, and returns to the water.

Sometimes it carries a small piece of yesterday. Sometimes it uncovers something that has been buried for years. And sometimes, someone walking along the edge notices what everyone else has passed by.

That is how I feel when we walk into an estate sale.

We travel through the countryside, the suburbs, and the hearts of metropolitan areas. Our journey has taken us through New York, the Carolinas, Texas, California, Nebraska, Illinois, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa and more.

Different landscapes. Different people. Different front doors.

Behind those doors, we find pieces of lives.

A book someone kept for decades. A dish brought out for special occasions. A photograph with no names written on the back. Something handmade that mattered enough for someone to save.

We cannot always know the story. I will not pretend we do.

But I wonder.

Who turned these pages? Who sat beneath this lamp? What conversations happened around this table?

Like waves leaving traces along a shoreline, people leave traces of themselves in the things they keep.

Then life changes, and those belongings begin another journey.

We visit private auctions, public thrift stores, and estate sales. We meet people we might never have crossed paths with otherwise. Sometimes we learn a little about the person who owned an item. Other times, we leave with questions that will never be answered.

What draws me back is the possibility that something overlooked can become meaningful again.

Lately, though, another current has been pulling at me.

The price of passing those memories along.

I find myself purchasing less and less from Goodwill because of the prices I encounter. When I look at an item someone donated and then look at its price tag, I sometimes wonder who can still afford the second chance.

There is context that deserves acknowledgment. Goodwill describes its mission around employment and community support, and its online marketplace says purchases help fund those programs. Online sales are a public part of its operation.

I understand that a donated item still costs money to sort, store, and sell. Employees deserve wages. Buildings and services cost money.

But I still believe affordability deserves a place in that conversation.

When generosity enters through the donation door, how much of that generosity should reach the person shopping inside?

That is the question I carry with me.

It reaches beyond any one thrift store. I feel it across a marketplace where so much attention goes toward getting the highest possible price.

At what point does the pursuit of another dollar begin to wash away the reason we started?

Estate sales often feel more personal to me. We are standing among things someone chose, used, and cared for. Those sales have costs and business interests, too, but the connection to a life is right there in the room.

That connection matters to us.

We purchase with another person in mind: someone who might enjoy the book, use the dish, display the photograph, or give an old object a new purpose.

Yes, we add something to the price. We need to recover what we spent and help support the websites where we share this journey.

But a sale price is not take-home profit.

There is the purchase itself. There are platform fees, packaging costs, and the expenses of getting an item into someone else’s hands. Taxes and other obligations also affect what remains.

By the end of the month, what we keep is very little.

People sometimes see the listings and imagine we are making a killing. They see money coming in without seeing how much goes back out.

Some months, it feels like standing in the surf: a wave reaches us, and the undertow carries most of it away.

I am not doing this to get rich. I want this work to sustain its purpose—to preserve something useful, share a memory, and help someone find a little joy.

I want a buyer to open a package and think, My grandmother had one of these.

Or, I have been looking for this.

Or simply, This makes me happy.

That moment matters to me.

I cannot speak for what everyone else wants from the world. But I worry about what we lose when the highest price becomes our first measure of value.

There should still be room for enough.

Enough to cover the cost. Enough to keep going. Enough left in someone else’s pocket for them to enjoy the purchase.

The waves will keep moving. Homes will change hands. Shelves will be cleared. Things that once belonged to one person will find their way to another.

We hope to help a few of them reach a welcoming shore.

The journey continues…

Peace of MIND, BODY, and SOUL. ✌️