furniture again after just getting my new huge chair. The chair has been too difficult to deal with.........I talked about that before, I think. I gave the chair to Judy, who will give it a good home. Her dog doesn't sit on the furniture with her, and the space is probably big enough for her and her two cats. I am pleased to have a standing mixer, even if it is older than I am. It still works and is a relic of sorts. It even has a juicer (though I rarely squeeze fruit). The binoculars are very powerful and the eye pieces adjust the focus separately (though I have only one useful eye ).
Now I am back to my usual poverty state after paying bills with my workshop money, but Idid make some purchases I otherwise wouldn't have been able to make, treating myself in a modest way. I have learned to be moderate in my spending when I get extra money. I have also learned to appreciate a bargain. I am just as happy with my thrift shop wardrobe and yard sale goods as I once was with new things. In fact, I think I may enjoy them even more. When I was a middle-class married woman, I always wished I had more buying power than I did. I wanted to have more and do more. I am now quite content. I can't think of the last time I wanted something I couldn't have. Part of that comes from less exposure to the material things of life. There are no stores here with merchandise to inspire greed, no neighbors with lifestyles I envy. We are all pretty much the same..........almost a classless society. Even though there are wealthy people here, there are few ways for them to display it. They are in the minority, and if any segment of the population is looked apon with some negative prejudice, it is them.............not out of envy, but from the different values they appear to have.
In any case, my living room will be transformed again today.
2 comments:
I love yard sales :) Lately I've been hunting for old Pyrex and cookbooks.
Class and how it plays out in Eastport has fascinated me for a while. Living in a town with possibly more/more obvious class distinctions, Eastport doesn't seem like such a homogeneous place to me. Even among your group of friends, there are some clear class differences. Several in the gallery crowd clearly have or came from money -- they don't flaunt it, but in some ways they don't have to: they've attended some of the best colleges in the country; they've bought gorgeous seaside homes (and possibly doubled the cost of those houses through repair and furniture); they have one or more cars in good condition; they travel; their home in Eastport is a 2nd home; they're never without good food and wine; they buy books; they're able to maintain a stash of art supplies. Moreover, there's never any expectation that they'd ever be without such things.
True, there are many people who in other places would be "upper crust." The fact that they are not apart from the rest of the community is what I mean by the almost classless society here. Wealth or poverty or enything in between doesn't separate anybody from the herd.
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