It’s called the Burk Emporium for a reason. After near 30 years in the same house, two attics, three sheds, and one well-appointed garage, we have one of everything on the planet. If not, we can surely procure one for you. And this year—well, it’s been a year of stuff. For one, middle age has us surveying the landscape in newly wise ways. All the years of college move-ins and outs (with bonus pandemic extensions), combined with the fastest quarter century on the planet, combined with glimpses now and then of our next chapter…well, it has me at a pause. (She, looking up from the daily grind: My goodness that’s a lot of stuff.)

We’ve always joked about stuff. Talked about stuff, maligned and regretted stuff. That’s the vogue way to approach it, is it not? Minimalism is in, possession is out? Geeze. Where are the 1980s when you need ’em. Wasn’t it just this I was writing about four years ago as the pandemic was bearing down on us and I was up in the attic pulling out costumes for a class video Sophie was producing (See Think I May Have One of Those, January 2020). So, when does “stuff” becomes “junk”? When does “having” become hoarding? Maybe it’s that subtle shift when time surpasses money as the greatest good. Perhaps you are already there, enjoying your sparse and monochromatic living spaces while the rest of us feel buried alive. Certainly is a trendy topic. Life lived in material form, arrayed before you in décor or in storage. Ah, the storage. And so here we are, right back to the Emporium.

You want it? We got it. Come on by. My family knows—and has complained for years—that I’ll sell anything that’s not nailed down. Like it or list it. It’s true. With four jobs between Bill and I and all but one of them earning roughly the same hourly rate as our daughter at a summer snack bar, Bill and I have developed pretty creative ways to keep the roof on around here. Spirit of duct tape, inner strength of resale. Mine is selling. Somebody around here looking for his or her whatsit that was kicking around the garage? They don’t ask me where it went. They just check Ebay.

My seller ID is jlb2ndchildhood. The initials are there because the moniker I chose is—go figure—something of a cliché and was already taken 20 years ago when I set up shop. All them Boomers scouring the online auction house for “vintage” toys to recapture their childhoods. My very first transaction? A child-sized red and yellow plastic push shopping cart (symbolic?) to go under the Christmas tree. Since then, I’m up to 1,823 transactions and have risen through the ranks as a “super seller.” What a hoot. But you know what? Back when you could still view your total sales over a larger chunk of time than 90 days (they’ve changed their rubrics over the years), I would peek from time to time at quite a tidy pile (yes, think five digits anyway)—especially considering the types of stuff I’m selling and the average proceeds per transaction at a whopping $7.81. Through a recession, a global pandemic, through the half a dozen part-time jobs and two decades of childrearing, my little Ebay side gig remains. People always willing… people always looking, as I have, for treasures lost.

I love resale. My sister says I have a PhD in it. I’ve sold winter coats, kids’ toys, collectibles, pajama lots, shoes, books, and more. We’ve sold busted-beyond-repair electronics. William once jumped on a Kindle. Yes—as in, jumped full bodyweight from bed to floor on a Kindle, so then the word “cracked” became an understatement and still that pricey little piece of no return fetched us $9.99 on Ebay going out the house. We’ve sold “NWT” and “NWOT” and “LK New” and vintage. (Does everybody know these tags? I think so?) All of it (except that Kindle) “EUC,” of course. I’ve listed things as big and cumbersome as a full drum set and as tiny as a single antique gold collar button. I’ve shipped antique china to California and a radar detector to Iceland. I think of the people all over the country and even the globe wearing/using/enjoying our stuff and it gives me courage and purpose to keep going. Still, I would not recommend resale as a liquidation strategy, especially if you’re in a time crunch; we’re a few million collar buttons shy of being able to park a car in our garage.

As you might imagine, stuff tells a story. That’s what makes it so hard to get rid of. One well-known minimalist out there says you must talk to it—you must thank it before you let it go. If I did that, we’d be knee deep and going nowhere, standing there making niceties to overflowing closets and packed attics. Most of our stuff—when I hear it? It’s talking, all right. It’s screaming Get me outta here. But downsizing takes a village, and I love it most when someone needs what I got to sell or give. That’s probably my favorite, actually. I’m not selling, I’m re-homing—the idea of a place for everything and everything in its place—just not my place. I’m sure it’s something deeply psychological—that need for approval, to have our things needed and used and appreciated, in the same way we have needed and used and appreciated them. At the end of the day, our stuff makes us matter, or we think it does. Why do you think it’s called “matter”? Perhaps there’s some part of resale that participates in our deepest human longings—Pick me! Like me! Need me!—to be wanted and valued.

The best part is the people you meet. Yes, online. Yes, on Ebay. I’ve had countless heartwarming transactions, recipients of my wares whose purchase results in making a personal connection not customary for the online sales scene. The church lady searching out sets of tea cups and saucers for the elegant teas they host at her church. The doll collector in Pennsylvania so delighted with her find (a Madame Alexander “Miss Germany” in darling costume) that I sent her Misses Austria, Sweden, and Spain for free. The guy in Florida whose sister died in the largest mass shooting in the state, who was buying teaching resources because he had undertaken to homeschool his (motherless) niece. That was the same week I had a guy drive up the driveway to buy a wallpaper steamer off Craigslist and learn that he is a former Parisian chef from a 5-star and has all the tips and tricks to dining in Paris that we actually put to use, girls and I. The corrections officer in Minnesota who bought our old flip phone and upon discovering Will had left all his photos on it, mailed it back so we could retrieve them.

Speaking of boomerang sales, the baby crib. Unbelievable. Sold the lovely oak crib that held all three of our babies through the years. It was a hand-me-down from parishioners to begin with. Nice Craigslist buyer from south of Richmond. Delivered it to her doorstep on the way to visit family in NC, carefully-honed plan of maximum efficiency. Happened to mention standing in her driveway how hard it was to part with, given the memories, the stories, it carried. I nearing the end of my children’s childhoods, she at the very beginning of hers. She apparently understood, because she took my cell number and promised to call when she was done with it. And two years later, when her baby outgrew it, she did. Don’t remember if I had to buy or back or not, but I certainly gave her something. Along with my incredulity-infused gratitude. She shared pictures of her baby girl, then toddler, and continued to text for a while, sharing news, making pleasantries. Crib is is back in our attic. Wrapped it up careful—part insanity, part nostalgia, all connection.

So it’s like that. This Christmas I’ll hear from or send notes to half a dozen “friends” I’ve made on Ebay. Life is hard, I think. This stuff trafficking brings it down a notch. Like planes on the tarmac at JFK there are boxes of treasures waiting for their day on Ebay: going out into the world like little messengers. Next up: vintage cameras. Maybe the childhood trains after that. One day, my entire miniatures collection including the Dump House, a dollhouse that was entirely researched and collected off Ebay. I tell you this: stuff finds me. And I suppose nowadays that is my method to happiness, the giver/sharer: I shall be happy when my stuff finds you.

At the beginning of the pandemic I listed and sold a set of three spiral-bound books that were paper DIY miniature rooms from the Met. As in Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was the beginning of the lockdown, and the increased online traffic was noticeable. Things that might have languished or closed without a bid got noticed and sold. Hot items got hotter. It was a way out of our misery. And my little paper craft books sold. Ten months later at Christmas I received a very kind correspondence from the buyer, containing pictures of the completed rooms and a heartfelt thankyou of how much the item had meant during the lockdown in NYC. I told him that the sanity and gratitude was mutual. And it was.

Just this week, between tutoring and dinner, hauling out of our first-in-24-years “guest room” a desk and chair that really serves no purpose and takes up a lot of space. Back in the day, Soph and I stripped it, chalk painted a creamy white, and waxed it up. I right liked it for the stint it did in her room. Now it’s empty, too big, and wanting to be free. So we freed it to a funny little man who must have emailed me a dozen times via Craigslist, arranging for pickup and payment yesterday. Done. Deal sealed. He was lovely. He even emailed me a thank you when he was home and had it all set up for his appreciative wife. And I as appreciative as she. What’s not to love about that?

Perhaps the stream of stuff and the stream of life run next to each other, the one a tangible record of the other. One of the American dolls we plucked off Ebay back in the day came from a seller on her way to college who was liquidating to pay tuition. Now, more than a decade later, after enjoying these dolls, they with their accessories and new stories go back on the auction block because yes, their owner is grown up and gone away to school. And Kirsten? One of the original American girl dolls? She and all her loot sold for a pretty penny a year ago when Ellie was doing a bit of “fundraising” (Check the attic!) for Italy. At Christmas time the buyer sent me pictures of our dolly all dressed and set up under the decorated tree, awaiting the joy of her little girl on Christmas morning, all of her furniture and accessories arranged and the outfits hanging from miniature hangers from the lowest branches of the tree. I think my nostalgia meter bust that day. You can bet I looked her up this fall when I came across all our American Girl DVDs and the colonial costumes I made for the girls way back when. Shipping only, I said, happy for you to have them. I happened to mention how much the girls loved wearing them when we visited Williamsburg, and she wrote back that she was very excited for her little girl because they live near a historic village as well—the very one I visited as a child. See? Small world, big hearts.

The idea that we are but leasing the things that bring us joy and can cast them back at the end of the day—the catch and release approach to our material lives, where the fun is all in the fishing—this, it strikes me, is a most pleasing view of stuff, indeed. In any case, these are powerful transactions for me at this stage in life, when I dwell on it. Mirroring the comings and goings of more tangible and treasured items: the ones I love. So it’s a comfort, this stuff.

The “Burk Emporium,” we call it. One of everything on the planet, or we can surely procure one for you. You need it? We have it. Come on by. 

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