Why I Feel At Home in Thrift Stores

Every article of clothing, every tchotchke, conjures a memory, a story.

Photo by Becca McHaffie on Unsplash

I feel the scratch of worsted wool in my hands. The sweater smells of mothballs and wooden chests in attics. I’m back in the basement of a cafeteria in the Bronx, where the mailroom holds compact discs from Columbia House for a penny, glossy catalogs of preened college students in cabins and on lakes, swaddled in their…