The Things That Last

On thrifting, treasure hunting, and Herb Caen.

I think it started in San Francisco, in our twenties, working our way through the vintage shops on Haight Street looking for jackets with a history, and the used bookstores that smelled like good decisions. That's where we found Herb Caen's Baghdad by the Bay, a love letter to the city we call home, and later added a few more Caen finds to the shelf. Caen spent decades chronicling San Francisco's characters, quirks, and contradictions, becoming as much a part of the city as cable cars and fog. The book quickly became one of our most treasured finds. You don't stumble onto a book like that in a new store. You have to earn it.

Herb Caen, San Francisco, and the find that started it all.

So yes, the habit was already in me. Travel just gave it new zip codes.

Then came Paris and Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen, the sprawling flea market at the edge of the city that somehow draws more visitors than the Eiffel Tower. Lisbon and Feira da Ladra, which roughly translates to "thieves market," tumbles down a hillside twice a week with the National Pantheon glowing white above it. Barcelona and Els Encants, one of Europe's oldest flea markets, now housed under a stunning mirrored canopy that bounces the city's light in every direction. Tokyo and Shimokitazawa, the city's vintage-cool pocket of thrift shops, record stores, tiny cafés, and side streets where the flea-market spirit spills through the whole neighborhood.

We have collected posters, jewelry, scarves, books, some we couldn't fully read. That felt right somehow. Our kind of souvenir.

I did not plan to become someone who gets excited about other people's old things. And yet here I am, in the back of a flea market on a random Saturday, holding a crystal bowl up to the light like I've just discovered something holy. Every vintage store tells a story. You just have to be willing to stay long enough to hear it.

There's a patience to thrifting that I genuinely love. A kind of meditative slow-walking through aisles of someone else's history, wondering how a thing was loved before it found you. I've learned more about a place from its secondhand shops than from any guidebook. The things people let go of say so much.

And then there's the sustainability of it all, which honestly used to feel like a bonus and now feels like the point. Every piece I bring home is one that didn't need to be made new. There's something quietly powerful about that.

My latest obsession? Vintage, mid-century glassware. My first find was a set of Arcoroc France bowls, and I genuinely could not tell you why they make me feel so much. They're modest. They're old. They catch light in this particular way that makes an ordinary afternoon feel a little elevated. I stare at them more than I should.

That's the thing about thrifting nobody tells you. You're not just buying objects. You're buying the feeling of finding something that was somehow waiting for you. That little hit of rightness. The treasure is real, but the joy is in the hunt.

Maybe that is why Herb Caen still feels like the right place to start this story. He knew San Francisco was never just one thing. It was corners, characters, odd little treasures, and the thrill of noticing what everyone else walked past. Which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like thrifting. The good stuff lasts because someone keeps seeing the story in it. I'm just getting started with the vintage glassware. Something tells me the shelves are going to get very full, very fast.