let it not be trash

There's a lot of would be trash in my apartment. I strongly believe in rescuing things in the dusky moment in time before they become garbage. That moment when something is set on a curb or in a dumpster. Pre-trash has nothing to do with the quality of an object. My apartment is full of wonderful things that would be trash. It has only to do with the will of whoever owned the object last. Several weeks ago, I saw an amazing board in a dumpster near where I work. The dumpster sits outside a professional theatrical company. I know the routine. A show ends, the set is struck, and a dumpster is delivered specifically to collect all the false entities that a production entails. For over a week I eyed the board en route to work. It had a big hole in it where a knot had fallen out, but was otherwise intact. A board of great character. I intended to call the theatre company and make sure that their trash was as it seemed. Not destined for some grand reincarnation elsewhere. But before I got around to calling, the dumpster disappeared. I think about that board often. I have many shelves made of reclaimed wood. Now I long for a true thespian shelf.


Last Wednesday Jon brought this in off the street. It is a fantastic piece. We are both in awe of it.


This piece of furniture could survive five generations if given the chance. As much as I marvel at IKEA, it is quite possible for a nice haircut to outlive most of its product line. Good furniture is something my generation has experienced only by way of nostalgia.

One of the many hats I wear at work is taking out the trash. I like to joke that I'm the garbage girl, insofar as the literal truth can be called joking. But more concerning than the nomen is the fact that I must acknowledge every piece of garbage. Beyond that, I ultimately determine whether or not an object becomes trash. This makes me a trash expert of sorts. It also instills in me a sadness I can never quite shake. I am mildly haunted by garbage. Once in a while, I come across something that I cannot bear to throw away. Not because I want it, but because I feel that deeming it garbage is a complete misallocation of this thing. Most recently- a styrofoam wine shipper. After exhausting every recycling resource available to me and finding its nearest point of recycle to be somewhere on the west coast, I adopted it as my neo-industrial wine rack.


I'm fond of it. It has a practical side rivaled by no other wine rack. If I decide to relocate my entire wine cellar (bottles totaling four at this point in time), I can simply grab its lid out of my bedroom closet and pack it up. It is unpretentious, like most of the wine I drink. But it is also egalitarian. My bottle of Iconoclast feels right at home here. Poor thing. Its day are numbered.