I inherited some Navajo stuff from my mom. My uncle had married a Navajo professor he met while teaching at Shiprock College (now Dine College). They adopted a Native American baby when I was twenty-two. Then my cousin’s wife’s aunt started advertising her Navajo rugs on Facebook, and soon I had four of those, plus a couple of vintage ones.
Almost a year has passed. I have a tall skinny cabinet also from Mom with nowhere to put it. Today I walked past the huge armoire in my hallway and thought, if I get rid of this, I could use this area for all the Navajo stuff. I’ve lived here almost fifteen years. That armoire has been in the way the whole time.
The armoire was full, vintage dresses, a wedding dress, children’s baptismal gowns. There were also three plastic tubs of hats inside (I told you it was big). Everything could go into the garage if I took some other tubs to the beach where fabric doesn’t go well with cold, damp storage in that garage.
I listed the free armoire on Facebook Marketplace. The problem with having things free is that people distrust the stuff. What is wrong with it? A few were interested, but as soon as I asked if they had a truck, then radio silence.
It’s been close to twenty hours, and my only real bite is a woman with a consignment shop in San Jose. She’s going to send her movers here to pick it up. That will cost her a pretty penny, since I am 45 minutes north of San Jose. But it’s free, so she wants it.
I hope she comes to get it. As I was cleaning out the bedroom yesterday (when my original thought was to put the armoire in there until my daughter talked me out of it), I found a tub of framed photos. One was of me at my grandmother’s house in front of her Eastlake dresser that had been painted white over gorgeous walnut. I was doing a commercial in front of the mirror when someone came up behind me with a camera and took a photo. This was long before we had cell phones of ever personal cameras. There are very few photos of me as a kid. But here I was, my Kindergarten self, mimicking some commercial I’d seen on TV, wagging my finger and saying, “You’d better buy it, because it’s good.” I don’t remember what I was selling, but I do remember family members laughing at my antics.
I didn’t grow up to pitch Pepsi or baking soda, but I did become a teacher, which involves public speaking skills. I’d like to think I got my start that day in my grandmother’s bedroom.
P.S. Aila, Izzy and Horace came and got the armoire. They loaded it into Horace’s short pick-up truck and they drove away, happy to have an armoire for their new closet-less apartment in San Francisco.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 