The poetics of recycling
There is a long shelf in the restroom near the writing center, an awkwardly placed shelf by the door that you can’t see from the sinks. I don’t generally leave my bag there.
Last week, there were a pair of shoes on the shelf – strappy sandals – and a sign taped to the wall above them said “Help Yourself!” in printed capitals. I liked that. I had no need of strappy sandals, but I appreciated the exhortation to help myself. It was like a cookieless fortune, a friendly reminder in the same tone as the sign on the restroom door that exclaims, “Wait! Do you have your keys?”
On Monday, the shoes and their sign were gone. What happened to them? The cleaning crew must have seen and ignored them for several days in a row; had they finally been thrown away? Or did some office Cinderella trip in, try them on, and find them fitting?
On Tuesday, today, there is a bundle of green and white fabric on the shelf. A blue post-it with red cursive writing proclaimed that the contents were free, and included one duvet cover and two pillow shams. I am impressed that the donor gave all of the proper names; I would have forgotten sham, I wouldn’t even have called it by another recognizable phrase like pillowcase. I would have said pillow cover. However, the writing at the bottom was less legible; I think it said “frist laundered.”
I am intrigued. I have a box of discarded things from my last big clean-out in Spring. No clothes or shoes: those were redistributed at a swap among friends, so that we all now point and grin when we see one of us wearing our old clothes.
No, nothing as personal as cloth that has been against my own skin. Instead of I have objects that have fallen into disuse: a clock shaped like the Eiffel Tower; a nearly complete set of Sims 1 expansion packs; a stack of ACT workbooks. I tell myself that one day I will throw my crate of goods into my granny cart and roll them up to AIDS Thrift, allow them to decide how to recirculate my trash. But I’m here every day anyway… what if I brought something up every morning, and left its fate to chance and post-its? Perhaps I wouldn’t need to include any notes at all with these objects – does a free Eiffel Tower clock need selling?
