Flea Market Love Quotes

I did not mean to be a Christian. I have been very clear about that. My first words upon encountering the presence of Jesus for the first time 12 years ago, were, I swear to God, “I would rather die.” I really would have rather died at that point than to have my wonderful brilliant left-wing non-believer friends know that I had begun to love Jesus. I think they would have been less appalled if I had developed a close personal friendship with Strom Thurmond. At least there is some reason to believe that Strom Thurmond is a real person. You know, more or less. But I never felt like I had much choice with Jesus; he was relentless. I didn’t experience him so much as the hound of heaven, as the old description has it, as the alley cat of heaven, who seemed to believe that if it just keeps showing up , mewling outside your door, you’d eventually open up and give him a bowl of milk. Of course, as soon as you do, you are fucked, and the next thing you know, he’s sleeping on your bed every night, and stepping on your chest at dawn to play a little push-push. I resisted as long as I could, like Sam-I-Am in “Green Eggs and Ham” — I would not, could not in a boat! I could not would not with a goat! I do not want to follow Jesus, I just want expensive cheeses. Or something. Anyway, he wore me out. He won. I was tired and vulnerable and he won. I let him in. This is what I said at the moment of my conversion: I said, “Fuck it. Come in. I quit.” He started sleeping on my bed that night. It was not so bad. It was even pretty nice. He loved me, he didn’t shed or need to have his claws trimmed, and he never needed a flea dip. I mean, what a savior, right? Then, when I was dozing, tiny kitten that I was, he picked me up like a mother cat, by the scruff of my neck, and deposited me in a little church across from the flea market in Marin’s black ghetto. That’s where I was when I came to. And then I came to believe.

I wanted to take a photo of his face just then. That boyish grin. That look of love, of contentedness. Couldn't he see? We didn't need children to complete us. We were already complete. I had my flowers and plants, and he had his writing. Wasn't that enough? Didn't he love the ebb and flow of our life together just as it was? The way I'd race home for dinner with a basket brimming with vegetables from the market or a handful of herbs from a garden project, eager to read the pages he'd written that day. Didn't he love, as I did, the quiet mornings we spent in our garden, sipping espresso and discussing our latest venture to a flea market in Queens or an antiques shop in Connecticut? Once we carted an enormous painted dresser to a taping of 'Antiques Roadshow' only to find that the piece was made in China. I grinned at the memory.

All the pictures in this book are authentic, vintage found photographs, and with the exception of a few that have undergone minimal postprocessing, they are unaltered. They were lent from the personal archives of ten collectors, people who have spent years and countless hours hunting through giant bins of unsorted snapshots at flea markets and antiques malls and yard sales to find a transcendent few, rescuing images of historical significance and arresting beauty from obscurity—and, most likely, the dump. Their work is an unglamorous labor of love, and I think they are the unsung heroes of the photography world.

Who’s that hot piece of cowboy standing with Nathan?” She pointed toward one end of the barn by a stack of hay bales. A scowl tightened all the muscles in his face as he followed the length of her arm to the direction of her fingertip. Before he could answer, she was already pulling him again. This time toward his cousin. “Nate, who’s your friend?” she asked, not bothering with hellos. Letting go of Caleb’s hand and leaving him feeling empty, she shifted her weight to her toes when she stopped in front of Preston. “Your eyes remind me of those old Sprite bottles. I found one at a flea market once. I think it’s still lying around somewhere in my room.” Nathan’s chuckle caught her attention. “Diana Alexander, let me introduce you to Preston Grant. He’s a childhood friend of mine and Caleb’s. Pres, this is Didi.” “Can I paint you naked?” she asked, unabashed, looking up at him. Nathan’s chuckles became full-blown laughter. She hiked her thumb at Caleb. His scowl deepened. “This one’s too shy.” “It’s nice to meet you, Didi,” Preston said. He seemed unperturbed by her request. The bastard. She danced to Nathan’s side and leaned in conspiratorially, not taking her eyes away from Preston. “Between you and me,” she whispered loud enough for Caleb and the object of her fascination to hear, “just how far does his tan go?” That had done it. The words came out of his mouth without thinking. “If you’re going to paint someone naked, it will be me.” With impatience running through his veins, he laced their fingers together and tugged. “Come on.

Then one day Chip showed up with the back of his pickup truck just loaded with old metal letters he’d found at a flea market--big, oddly shaped letters taken from various old signs. They were mismatched and rusty and dented--and I loved them. We tacked them up on the front of the shop, spelling out the name that would come to mean so much: Magnolia. The letters were uneven and looked a little handmade and ragged, but it seemed to work. I loved this sign because Chip designed it and made it with his own two hands. It came together in such an imperfectly perfect way, and I hoped people would get it. To this day that sign is one of my proudest accomplishments. I’m no Joanna Gaines, but I certainly see things differently and love design in my own unique way. That first sign really reflected that for me. I would glow when I would hear a customer come in the shop and say, “I saw the sign and just had to stop in.

I can imagine a world where I learn to be alone, learn to cook for one, learn to make lists (don’t forget to water the plants, the trash doesn’t magically take itself out to the curb, laundry must be moved from washer to dryer) and set timers and reminders and alarms and calendar invites to myself. When the phone rings, it won’t be Aidan. Here in this white on white with white accents space, I can see my things for what they are rather than what they remind me of. The monkey-wearing-a-top-hat lamp we bought laughing until we cried at a flea market in Wisconsin is now in a Goodwill in North Carolina. This light fixture was ordered by my sister from a website specializing in things without a soul.

Equally scandalized by this election are the colorful band of lipstick jihadi Hirsi Ali wannabes who are writing one erotic fantasy after another about Iranian “women,” oversexualizing Iranian politics as they opt for “love and danger” during their “honeymoon in Tehran.” The representation of Iranian women in the flea market of the US publishing industry began under President Bush with Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran and has now reached a new depth of depravity in Pardis Mahdavi’s Passionate Uprisings: Iran’s Sexual Revolution. Between a harem full of Lolitas and a bathhouse of nymphomaniacs is where Nafisi and Mahdavi have Iranian women, marching in despair, awaiting liberation by US marines and Israeli bombers. What a contrast to the real work of women, as testified to in this election, and now on the street in defense of the collective will of the nation.

She’d been building junk-art birds, mostly cranes, since before I was born. Making those birds was a cross between pure love and a nervous habit, the way some might do crossword puzzles or needlepoint. She sold them in the restaurants where she worked or at small flea markets and coffee shops for a little extra money. I thought they were the most beautiful creatures I’d ever seen and always felt a twinge when they flew away to their forever home, wishing we’d find ours.

At the wooden counters up front, laden with thick catalogues in tattered binders, people would haggle for switches, resistors, capacitors, and sometimes the latest memory chips. His father used to do that for auto parts, and he succeeded because he knew the value of each better than the clerks. Jobs followed suit. He developed a knowledge of electronic parts that was honed by his love of negotiating and turning a profit. He would go to electronic flea markets, such as the San Jose swap meet, haggle for a used circuit board that contained some valuable chips or components, and then sell those to his manager at Haltek.

My mom and I don't look much alike. She's wild, with red curly hair, freckles, and hazel eyes. I take after my father, she says. The few pictures I've seen of him prove her right. The pale skin, black hair, elfin features, and green eyes are nearly identical. I may have gotten my looks from my father, but I get my determination and stubbornness from my mother. She limps around the kitchen serving up our breakfast, and I resist the urge to help her, to insist she sits. I know she's in pain. I can see it eating away at her, in the pinched expressions on her face and weariness of her eyes. It's gotten worse over the years, and her pain pills are less and less effective. But despite it all, she won't let me help. My mother is nothing if not proud and fiercely independent. We sit at our two-person plastic kitchen table surrounded by peeling yellow walls with cheap flea market paintings of flowers and fruit decorating them. I love our kitchen, as tiny and old as it is. It's cheery and always smells of cinnamon and honey. I'm