Monday, August 3, 2020

I step outside the power line shadows to duck around furniture dumped on the ground. Large trash is collected on Mondays. Outside my house, it all goes on a specific concrete slab at the corner of the pedestrian street. Elsewhere, people put it on the sidewalk. Usually it is quite tidy. Today, it looks like somebody has gone along this street, flipping furniture over and routing through the additional trash that had been placed in bags beside it. On this block, a large sofa turned upside down takes up much of the width of the pavement. I have to step into the street to get around the couch. Further down, an upholstered recliner rests, face down, on the cement. I could use one of these. I don’t know why it was discarded, though. There might be something awful on its front. And I don’t know how I could get it home or whether it would fit through my front door. Along the pedestrian street, a household appears to have renewed its kitchen. Well-used pots and pans lie in a pile around the packaging from new ones. Elsewhere I pass more upholstered furniture, build-it-yourself shelving that has been torn apart and trashed, and a carefully piled collection of women’s clothing and Russian children’s books. I don’t pick up anything, but what I see does remind of things that I plan, someday, to buy. First I have to free up space in my apartment. New stuff will have to wait.