January Clears

Charity shops, melting snow & tree piles.

The first Monday of January and the charity shops near me aren't accepting donations. Full up. I see a man sneak one in, a coat it looks like he'e been wearing up to that point laid out on the counter. 'I'll leave this here for donation, alright?' He's already leaving.

'Alright. Yes thank you' the young man says too surprised or tired to say no.

The manager appears says 'We're not supposed to be taking donations.'

'Its a coat, it's just a coat.' No gift aid questions as the bell rings his exit from the shop.

I'm pretty sure I see a game on a shelf that used to be mine. Ours, that has been donated in a clear out of a house that is nothing now like how I left it. And I'm cleaning out again. Checked all my pens to see if they work.

I lived with a woman who's new boyfriend came back from the charity shop with a suit she recognised. Her ex-boyfriend’s she was sure, from a wedding they once went too. It seems the two boyfriends, past and present were a similar fit.

I'm haunted by clothes in charity shops that I have seen before, owned before. In slightly different sizes, different buttons missing, different areas I gave them away in, years before. I smile at them as old friends, hoover my fingers over materials, remember them on my skin.

People are taking their unwanted gifts, their January clear-outs to somewhere they think, I think, that it will be useful to someone else. No longer there. Their’s. A friend posted pre Christmas that a woman in a charity shop had said to him that she wished people would do their clearouts, get rid of their unwanted toys before the festive season. So those who cannot afford the new thing can buy these things as gifts. January they are overwhelmed.

Giant snowballs are dying as I take the scenic walk back through the park of tall trees running along the railway line. Lumps of solid snow, mud round the edges. They probably weren't snowballs but snow people, made in the last day, packed together.

There are kids still checking them, kicking them, making sure if they could be playable with. Round the wet ruts across the park, by the pond that isn't always a pond but is a pond today, near freezing. A sign that warns of the danger in water even if it isn’t there. Wet earth. Unstable ground.

A pile of Christmas trees, stacked together. A sign that offers to put yours here. A park that does the recycling for them, friends of the park, an invitation to make a donation. These trees that have been in houses, in the warmth, reaching over, guarding gifts, stood in corners, on their own, have not been near each other, other trees, until now. Lying on top of each other. Or maybe they knew each other from before, they came from the same Christmas tree farm. Or the bit outside Lidl. They greet each other in needle drops, hugging branches, balancing, all together longer than the length of a felled plane tree. Green still.

A man walking down the street two trees to take to the pile in his hands, I cross the road to give him space. It's the reverse of Christmas carrying