29 Sep October 2023 at Experienced Goods

By Jennie Reichman

Fall arrived this year by turning the seasonal page with a flourish. One day I’m out in the garden swatting black flies and the next I am wearing a sweater and turning up the heat in the house for the first time since June. We have had jackets and sweaters out on the racks at Experienced Goods for a couple of weeks now, but they were a hard sell when the temperatures were still in the 80s. Now shoppers are coming up to the checkout desk with carts piled high with all things fleecy, puffy and woolly. Like every year, it’s fun to open boxes of fall clothes we’ve stored over the summer, see the rich colors and touch the cozy fabrics.  And can we talk about Halloween costumes? Whatever your imagination conjures up, we probably have at least a few elements that can make it a reality, and racks of costume-y clothes if you are looking for inspiration.  

The day after the autumnal equinox, a chilly, rainy fall day if there ever was one, I went to a party at a friend’s house that he dubbed Tea-quinox. It was afternoon tea for 25 or so guests, complete with scones and cakes and savory snacks and hot pots of tea to warm hands and souls. He has a lovely, spacious house, perfect for lots of conversations to bubble along between guests as we sipped and noshed. There was a fire in the woodstove keeping it toasty. At one point he made the announcement that he had pieces of paper on which we could, if we wanted, write down something we are grateful for, and on another piece of paper write a thing we want to jettison out of our lives. We could tuck the grateful thing in a pocket to appreciate later, but the thing we wanted to jettison we could put in a paper bag that he would burn in the woodstove later in the party. Goodbye, unwanted thing, carried into the autumn air on woodsmoke! That little bit of symbolic magic, along with good food and much lively conversation, made for a very rich mix. There came a point in the afternoon when I started to feel a little overwhelmed, listening and talking, holding people’s stories and telling my own, and I realized I needed to step away and make a graceful exit. I thanked my friend and drove home, grateful for quiet and cool air and gentle rain.  

At Experienced Goods, we do a lot of talking and a lot of listening. Especially for those of us who work at the front desk, encountering so many different energies and trying to meet the needs of every shopper and donor can sometimes feel overwhelming. So we’ve developed a system of working in shifts at the cash register, ensuring that nobody spends more than 2 hours at a time in the eye of the storm. You might see someone walk away from the desk and someone else take their place, or the person who’s putting clothes back on the racks or organizing housewares may jump up to the second cash register if customers are waiting in line to pay. We try to relieve the overwhelm by always having each other’s backs.  

Once upon a time we had only one cash register and one person who worked in that position all day. How we did that for so long without major meltdowns I’ll never know, but for everyone’s sake, I’m grateful we do our best to share the load and know when we need to take a break. Enjoy this lovely season, and remember, if you are cold, come to Experience Goods and buy a sweater!