shame
A submission from Jane
On my way to see the exhibit I, by chance, stopped by a thrift store to drop off a couple of bags of clothes and shoes. Some of them were mine and some were things my children had grown out of. I was conscious as I handed them to the woman at the thrift store of a feeling of shame. Some of the items in the bags were in good shape and I felt certain that someone would want to buy them — a pair of barely used Kenneth Cole shoes, a shirt that someone gave my daughter that still had the store tags on it. But other things were badly worn and it was hard for me to imagine anyone wanting to buy them. Yet I still couldn’t bring myself to throw them in the garbage — they had once been useful, people are in need, couldn’t a little more use be wrung out of them? I felt ashamed though of thse worn things, ashamed that I was foisting them off on the thrift store, ashamed of being a person who would give such a useless donation. I wanted to be anonymous, to give the things and go, before anyone could call me on it. As I drove away, I felt relieved to be rid of the things, but the shame lingered and I tried to comfort myself with the thought of the Kenneth Cole shoes. It struck me that ridding ourselves of things we no longer want is not unlike ridding ourselves of bodily waste — we wish for privacy, we may have been taught shame about those functions of our body, and yet it may also bring relief.