It had to be done.

We did it.

Hello, friends.

Last Saturday, at 8 am, I drank the last sip of my 2nd cup of coffee, looked at my husband, Danny, and said, “Let’s go!” He drank the last of his coffee, then stood up.

We had work to do.

He picked up our 2 cats and put them into the bathroom, so we could open the front door wide. We moved toward an empty bookshelf together. Ready? I asked him. He grabbed one end and I grabbed the bottom. On the count of 3, we both lifted the heavy shelf, then shuffled our way toward the door.

“Let’s lean this one against the fence over there.”

He nodded and chose to go backwards down the stairs. We worked together, in synch, to use our muscles to get this thing out of our apartment. When it was placed, we lifted 20 more pieces of furniture over the course of the next hour.

We had advertised our garage sale on a West Seattle Facebook page the day before.

EVERYTHING FREE! We’d like to gift you almost everything we have. Give us the gift of making it all go away by the end of the day.

Within a few minutes, people were jockeying with each other to get the rectangular fire pit in the front of the photo. Messages: We just moved and we really need this for our apartment rooftop deck. Comments: Pick me!

It became a bit of a frenzy, right away. So I had to edit the caption: I cannot save anything for anyone. First come, first served.

The people came.

If you tell people that you’re starting at 11, then the first clutch of folks will walk through the gate at 10:30. Welcome, come in. I had anticipated this, so I didn’t ask anyone to go away and come back. Instead, people strolled around the front yard of our apartment building, looking at the furniture that leaned against the fence and rifling through the books in a giant box on the deck. To my surprise, no one wanted the fire pit right away.

At 10:45, a friend I met this past year showed up with hot coffee with oat milk for me, in a travel cup she wanted me to keep. She also brought me gluten-free chocolate-chip muffins she had baked the day before. She knew that I was exhausted. My husband too.

Getting ready to move is hellish.

So she brought us treats to make our morning easier. (Thank you, Aura!)

And when she saw that the fire pit was still there, she asked if she could take it. Why not? First come, first served, after all.

Later, she sent me a photograph of it lit in their backyard, underneath the awning her husband installed in 2020 to make an outdoor space. “We’re going to love this for a long time!”

That was my intention with this sale. Come. See what you like.

If it calls to you, take it home.

Could I have made a couple hundred dollars by putting price stickers on everything, then haggling with people for the highest price they would pay? Sure.

And I would have felt drained.

We wanted all this stuff to go away, since our new home is furnished.

Take it away! Take it away!

I wanted the day to be a gift for everyone. To surrender.

The best part of it all? Our lawn and the most of the remaining pieces of furniture in the house were all gone by 3 pm that day. We didn’t have to deal with them anymore.

But just about as good? The connections we made with people that day.

A woman showed up with her husband and walked a direct path to the massive box of books on our porch. In packing up the house, I realized that at least ½ of our boxes would be books. Normally, I would be proud of that. But when I looked at the books in our youngest kiddo’s room, I realized we had never culled through them to ensure that all the books looked enticing to them, right now. The little-kid board books, the science books for preschoolers, the picture books we had liked but had not cherished — someone else could love them now.

Oh, to be clear, I kept the ones I loved the most. I can make a shelf of all of our favorite picture books in the new house. But the ones that I had purchased, en masse, at thrift stores, to keep them reading? Those could go.

And this woman who went first to the box? She has a free little library of children’s books in West Seattle. “I started it during the pandemic. It gave me such delight to see kids stopping to pick up something to read while the libraries were closed. I’ve kept it going ever since.”

She took all but 10 books out of the 200 that sat in that box. Glorious.

All throughout the day, I met people I loved.

Two women, best friends, showed up and took a huge swath of things: the cooler that had been sitting under the porch; the baseball bats and other things sports; shelves and bits and bobs all over the lawn. I think they took about ¼ of what we offered. Thank you! Turns out they live on the same street, where about 30 kids live. They have parties and basketball tournaments and the adults all know each other.

If we had lived on that street, we might have wanted to stay in the city.

We connected immediately, as soon as I found out that one of them is also a writer. Sara Bond — I can’t wait to read your “slightly spicy fantasy books.” I’ll see you soon.

I had a great conversation with an older woman who had just retired from teaching special education at West Seattle High School, after 30 years. One of Danny’s teaching colleagues stopped by to pick up a table and chairs and we talked and talked and talked.

A couple came looking for something and left with their hands full. They were new to the city, from St. Augustine, Florida, where they had lived on a boat for 4 years. Turns out he was a chef, like Danny was for more than 30 years, so we stayed talking for awhile. He mentioned that he had worked in Telluride, in Colorado, for quite a while. When I mentioned the name of one of Danny’s brothers, who was the head of ski patrol there for years, this man said, “Oh, I know his brother!”

The world feels connected when we start talking with each other.

My friend Sadie came by to see what we had and realized we had a basketball hoop we had never put together. (Hello, ADHD.) She called her husband to bring their other car. They took that one, plus the one that was broken before it. One of their friends is a welder. They knew he could fix them both. Suddenly, they saw a full basketball court in the alley behind their house. Oh, this made me happy.

Before she left, Sadie gave me mala beads from a temple in Kathmandu. Her husband is Nepalese, so they visit often. (Together, they run Shanti collection, Diwas Photography, and Travel with a Local in Nepal.) She saw the stone statue of the Buddha in our yard, so she went to her car to bestow them on me. They signify safe journeys.

I hugged her close. Thank you, Sadie.

By the end of the afternoon, all but 5 pieces of furniture were gone. We had successfully given away 80% of our stuff.

Whoo hooo!

And then, the next day, the rough work began.