July at Experienced Goods
by Jennie Reichman
OK, before I launch into this article, I have to say one word: Summer! It arrived like an Oscar-winning movie star sashaying into the after-party, all grand entrance and intense magnetism. Heat we were not ready for assaulted our bodies and brought shoppers into Experienced Goods looking for the lightest, loosest, shortest, airiest clothing they could find, and maybe a couple of swim suits for the first plunge into rivers and ponds. Glorious Vermont summer, with its burgeoning gardens and lush green everywhere, the wondrous season I experienced on my first visit here 33 years ago, and the reason I knew this was home.
I spent the evening of the summer solstice this year making music in the backyard grotto of our shop volunteer Roberta Levy and her husband Richard Davis. They invited me to give a concert in this beautiful setting, chairs and tables set up amidst terraced ledges and carefully tended plantings, lights strung in arcs overhead, a small, appreciative audience really listening to the songs. The best compliment I got that night came from Maureen, another shop volunteer, who said, “I love listening to you play in this venue because I can really hear the lyrics and the stories they tell." Along with the joy of putting those lyrics to music and singing them, that, in a nutshell, is why I write songs and play them. Words, stories, common experiences, they are as old as humanity and inevitably bind us together.
We hear a lot of stories at Experienced Goods, whether overheard as people chat with each other while they are shopping or at the front desk as we ring up shoppers’ purchases and they tell us where they are going to wear that dress or how that set of dishes is exactly like the one they remember from their childhood visits to their grandmother. People share surprisingly intimate things with us as we tally up their treasures: stories of relationships, travels, illnesses, recovery, plans for the future. Often a simple question like, “How are you doing today?” is enough to get a person talking. Of course, there’s always a balance that needs to be struck between listening attentively to a person’s story and moving on to help the next person in line; we who work at the front desk have become masters of tactfully bringing a conversation, along with a shopping experience, to a satisfying end. Interactions like this, though, filled with words that tell people’s stories and allow them to feel heard, are what make in-person retail so important to the vitality of towns and cities of any size, anywhere. Towns are made up of people and people need to talk to each other to build trust and community. What better place than a thrift store that benefits that community?
Brattleboro Area Hospice’s new name, Center for Solace, and its expanded mission epitomize the richness and resiliency that result from sharing words, stories, ideas, comfort, and support. To honor this new direction, we are now selling beautifully designed cloth tote bags screenprinted with both the Experienced Goods and Center For Solace logos for $5 each, available near the front desk at the shop. Perfect for carrying your purchases and so reusable.
Experienced Goods, busy and chaotic as it seems at times, is at its heart a place where people can find solace and bring a little balance to their lives, if only for a few minutes or an hour of shop therapy and conversation with friends and neighbors. As we rush to celebrate all our short summer season has to offer, may those moments of solace reverberate, like a song, like a good story, and give us strength for going forward.