Picture a blue, canvas-lined laundry cart. The kind of thing you might have thrown used gym towels into back in high school.

A Goodwill worker gestures you toward the left side of the lot and rolls one of a matching pair of blue carts forward as you idle to a stop. A younger man follows him in what appears more of an over-staffed than a supervisory role. 

You work quickly under their gaze to gather piles of books heaped in the car like shale crumbled on a hillside.  You lay them in the cart ending with four moderate stacks.

Counting Cockatoos has left your home. With those colorful birds go a thick manual about the first year of a baby’s life, a skimpy 8-page illustrated board book of the song “Patty Cake” and an oversized volume about sharks. Should your son ever learn of this last donation, you might advise he read one of his many other shark books or magazines to soothe his grief.

To the cart you add one of those devices seen in pediatrician waiting rooms with the colorful wooden beads strung on bendy wire tracks. These will captivate some small kids for some small number of minutes. Now yours occupies a cubic foot of this cart instead of your garage. 

You were surprised at how readily your son volunteered the red plastic semi-truck named Mack, part of his set of vehicles from the movie Cars. How will Lightning McQueen make it from one racetrack to the next without Mack? And where is shiny, red Lightning McQueen anyway? 

How quickly love for an old toy fades when Star Wars LEGOs and graphic novels now litter the playroom carpet.

A few more items leave your car for new homes and it is over. 

You close the door on an empty trunk and the first man rolls the cart back toward the building. As he follows, the second, younger guy removes the yellow child-size ukulele from the cart and begins strumming. 

This is no longer your ukulele. 

A tiny weight is lifting on his tuneless notes as you climb behind the wheel to leave those encumbrances behind.

The literal lightness of your car pales compared to the figurative lightness. You float away from the donation station. 

Freed of those belongings. 

Lighter.

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This piece is dedicated to my wife, Heather, who misses this joy and lightness because I make most of our Goodwill donation drop-offs.