Thinking in charity shops...

On ritual, routine, and why charity shops are where I go to think.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a little out of sorts.

It’s that strange mix of having a part-time job that somehow occupies my brain full-time, and feeling disconnected from my life, from the year I want to be having, and from the things I know I need to achieve within it. On days when I’m not working and the to-do list feels both overwhelming and deeply unappealing, I hear the siren song of the charity shop louder than ever.

And I never say no to it.

There’s something about walking into a charity shop that helps me untangle the soup of thoughts bubbling away in my head and that’s exactly what I did on Friday. On a balmy hot day, I took myself off to my favourite charity shop route; Caterham and Purley, in deepest South London. And the pleasure begins with the journey: the ritual of the train ride, the predestined order which I visit each shop in, the rhythm of it all, starts to soothe me before I’ve even stepped through a charity shop’s front door.

What I found wasn’t quite what I expected but it was probably what I needed.

A lot had changed since my last visit to Caterham. Some shops had closed. The ones that remained didn’t seem as enticing. The stock seemed drab and unappealing, and not remotely merchandised. There was nothing obvious drawing me in. But I’ve learned that first impressions rarely count in these places. If a shop doesn’t immediately spark something, I just let my senses take over.

That’s when I go into automatic mode. A little like automatic writing, I flit slowly from rail to rail, not really paying too much attention to what is in front of me, and letting my senses guide my curiosity, just waiting for that ‘click’ inside my head to pause at whatever is in front of me and investigate further.

I always start with shoes and jewellery. Those sections are small, concentrated. I scan for colour, shape, odd configurations—anything that warrants a second look. Then it’s the men’s section, where I’m forever on the hunt for cotton dress shirts with interesting collars or sharp silhouettes. I have many already, but the perfect shirt always feels like it’s just one rail away.

While I’m doing all this, I’m also letting my thoughts settle. There’s something about occupying one part of my brain with the act of looking (hunting for beauty in the everyday) that allows the other thoughts, the stressful ones, to float to the surface in a more manageable way.

Then it’s onto homeware.

Sitting on the top shelf was a little French gravy jug with two spouts, one to let fat through, one to stop it. It was £1, and it instantly reminded me of a girlfriend, who loves those sorts of specific, Francophile kitchen objets. It was lovely to have that memory just appear like that, triggered by this dinky piece on a dusty shelf.

I also kept reaching for anything in the shade Kelly green. That vibrant, clean blue-green hue that screams GO. Jackets, shirts, shoes: I didn’t buy any of them, but I loved seeing the colour in person. It felt like a motif the day had chosen for me.

Shop after shop, I moved past the initial disappointment and into the slower rhythm of filtering, searching, letting the shop reveal its little secrets. Not everything makes the cut. Not everything comes home. But that’s not really the point.

Sometimes you find something small and special. In my final stop of the day, I popped into the Cancer Research shop in Norbury and spotted a pair of chandelier earrings marked “O-T-A-Z-U” on the back. One of my new passions, is seeking out vintage or contemporary branded costume jewellery and so I paid £1.50, intrigued and keen to discover anything I could about “Otazu’. A quick online search lead me to Rodrigo Otazu, a prolific Argentinian designer, whose designs have been worn by Lady Gaga since the mid-00s. A tiny piece of fashion history, which is now all mine.

So yes, it was one of those days where I felt quite alone. But I also felt deeply connected to my thoughts, to my memories, and to the funny, beautiful corners of South London that always manage to surprise me.