Sustainable Future

It is Saturday morning at 10:07 am and I find myself following a young man I have only just met down a narrow sidewalk between buildings, past a tall spruce tree to a humble but exceedingly well-kept little carriage house hidden in the middle of a block in North-East Portland. The slab of cement next to the garage has been swept clean, and on it, along with some hand painted pots of hellebores, sits a kind woman in her fifties next to a sturdy wooden table.

She is dressed in a navy blue and white linen suit that looks handmade. (Perhaps she has hand-stitched the trim herself?) The sun shines through the tree branches in this secret place and she smiles at me kindly and asks if I have been to the freestore before.
I tell her no, but my friend has been here and he told me about it. I tell her I have brought something with me and hold out a bag containing two books I’d read, a pair of pants my daughter won’t wear, and the slippers my mother gave me for my birthday. (They were by far the best slippers I’d ever had, still brand new, but a half-size too small and the store wouldn’t take returns.)

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