I remember the look on my mother’s face when our poverty was put on public display; when we had to return groceries after they were scanned by the cashier, but the total bill was far more than we could afford. Or when a woman came to our house and upon seeing our area rug called it ‘creative’, using a politely disgusted tone. My mother had spent hours sewing it together using carpet samples I pulled out of garbage bins from the industrial park behind our house. We, my mother and I, both knew the comment wasn’t a compliment. I saw the hurt in my mother’s eyes. I knew she was very proud of what we made together; I didn’t like how someone could just take that away with their words.

“Never look down on anyone”, my mother told me sternly after the visitor left. I didn’t know who this woman was, my mother spoke to her in her broken English, for which she was also made to feel small. “Never look down on another person’s home or their life or ever think you’re better than they are. Everyone is as good as you are, we’re all just trying.” She was angry, not at me, and maybe not even angry, I think she was tired of feeling like there was never enough.  

My mother taught me to look across at people, into their eyes, to look long enough and hard enough until I discovered something that made us similar. We were never to look down on anyone, but equally so, no one had the right to look down on us. My mother knew the difference between when someone came into our lives offering to ‘help us’ but not offering to be our friends, and when they came offering both. As much as we needed the generosity of others, she didn’t want the pity.

She had experienced enough pity and enough charity to last her a life time; I think what she really wanted was friends. She wanted people far more than she wanted stuff. And so when real friends came along, even if they came with household items we needed or bags of clothing their kids had out grown, she didn’t feel ashamed accepting the help because they stayed for tea. They stayed and got to know her. I learned to tell when someone was acknowledging our circumstances without comparing them to their own. I could tell when my mother was being respected, despite what she did or didn’t have. She taught me to see when there was judgment at the door. I could tell just by looking at her. I didn’t need to hear the adult conversation, whatever was said that made her feel bad; I could watch from a distance, and in matter of minutes, I’d see my confident, capable mother disappear when someone offered her the things that weren’t quite good enough for them anymore.

That day however, it didn’t matter what the woman said. My mother was so proud of our area rug. She was proud of me, because I was clever and resourceful, and somehow I managed to bring things home that made our lives just a little bit easier. I didn’t feel ashamed of how I got the raw materials my mother magically turned into beautiful things. All of it, my treasure hunting and her upcycling were the products of an honest day’s work.   

I was about ten years old when, together with my cousin, we regularly went ‘dumpster diving’. We were in search of treasure. The public row housing we lived in was walking distance from huge manufacturing warehouses. Luckily this was before the days of security cameras, motion detectors, locked bins, and tall fencing. When the factories shut down on the weekends, we got to work. We had two days to scour the bins and make away with our stash like bandits.

The bins we searched were huge, absolutely enormous, three or four times the size of today’s back lane apartment block bins. It took a lot of effort to climb the sides; using the sleeves where the truck’s forks slid in to lift them, as steps. Once we were both on the sleeve, we stared inside. Nothing about the outside of the buildings gave away what they made inside and thus what they threw away. It was very exciting every time.

We peaked in. It took a minute for our eyes to adjust to the dark belly while the sun shined behind us. ‘Ooooh, carpets’, this was a carpet manufacturer; we struck gold. Amongst the scraps and end of the roll pieces, we could see what looked like large binders of carpet samples. Those would be perfect for so many things. Most often we both went into the bin, but not this time.

“Just wait, I’ll go get them,” I volunteered to go in alone. The bin wasn’t very full, there would be a bit of a drop to the bottom. Probably best if one of us stayed outside to pull things from the top. I jumped down; it was a soft landing. Now that I think about it, we didn’t exactly have a plan for what we’d do if one or both of us got stuck in a bin, after all we were ten and eight years old. (I smile now thinking about how my grandmother told me I ‘kept my guardian angels plenty busy’ – she was so right.)

I got the first bundle and walked over to my cousin. She was peaking over the edge telling me where to look next. She was in charge of surveying the bins contents from the top and instructing me on where to dig. I dug wherever she saw something worth investigating. She was very bossy but she also had a better view from where she stood than I did once I was in the semi dark bin.

The carpet binder was really cool, I thought, as I reached up to hand it to her. I liked ‘collections’ of things, a bit of a hoarding tenancy I attribute to my grandmother who squirreled away just about everything of ‘possible, indeterminate, not always entirely clear’ future use. These were ready-made collections, with fancy binding. Plus the samples were a really good size, big enough to sit on, maybe slide down stairs on, or arrange in our forts. They came in so many colours, textures, some were thick and others short. I was dreaming up the possibilities. 

She grabbed the bundle. “Wow, these are so nice, what are we gonna do with them?” she exclaimed. “I don’t know, we’ll see,” I answered as I walked away to keep looking. “Get more, we need more,” she yelled, excited and acting like we were racing against some other garbage raiders threatening to steal our treasure.

“Okay, okay, just wait.” I went into the darker part of the bin, under the lid that wasn’t flipped open. A minute later I emerged with another bundle.

“Take it, come on, take it, my arms hurt”, I shouted, holding it up waiting for her to grab it. “I’m trying, it’s heavy” she shouted back, taking the opportunity to make fun of me for being in the garbage bin. We started laughing uncontrollably, our happy sounds echoing inside. “Stop, stop, I’m going to pee myself,” I yelled, crossing my legs while bending over to catch my breath. That was when we were our happiest, when the laughter shook our bellies and made us run into the bushes to pee.

After I handed her the final bundle I could find, it was time to get out of the bin. “Okay, pull me up,” I said reaching up. (I remind you, again, that getting out of the bin wasn’t thought out in advance.) She leaned in and gave me her arms. We locked hands, I lifted my legs and hung there for all of a second while nothing happened. We both let go. “I can’t do it, you’re too heavy,” she was laughing again; probably delighted that the treasure was on the outside of the bin with her while I was trapped in the bin empty handed. She sounded a bit panicked too; her laugher was in part a nervous response. “It’s okay, I’ll get myself out,” the words came out but I wasn’t sure how I’d do it. I stood in the bin knowing that getting our parents or the older siblings who were supposed to be ‘babysitting’ us wasn’t an option. We were on our own.

I looked around and then started throwing whatever was inside against the bin’s wall. I needed to build something I could climb to get high enough to reach the edge. It took a few minutes of nervous throwing as my cousin watched, then I scaled it, grabbed the edge and jumped onto the edge. My head was in the sunlight. It took a lot of effort to get out of that bin.

My cousin was standing with our haul, beaming. “Look how much we got. They’re so nice. They’re perfect. Why do they throw them out?

“I don’t know,” I answered, a bit tired from my clumsy escape. “Let’s take’m home, we’ll do something fun.”

But aside from not thinking through how to get out of these deep bins we also never thought about how to bring our finds home. Since I was older I suppose I was the brains of the operation; the inadequate planning was my fault.

We grabbed our bundles, shared fair and square, and started walking home. They were really heavy; it took a long time to get back. I wish now that we had had a wagon, we could have brought back so much more. 

I don’t recall our mothers asking a lot about where we found the stuff, they were happy we came home with useful things. My mother arranged the carpet samples in a nice pattern, varying the colours, and with a strong needle and heavy string, attached them together. That’s how she made our area rug, the one in front of our couch, the one some lady described as “creative” using a snotty voice. It was a great rug. 

Besides carpet samples, my cousin and I also came home with boxes of small ceramic tiles. There were a few boxes lying on top of other rubbish in a bin filled with sharp edges. We both went in that one, to sort more carefully. It was quite amazing that those boxes landed in the bin without breaking the tiles inside. My mother was so happy when I came home with that day’s hunt; she tiled a backsplash behind the sink in the kitchen. It looked really nice.

Carpets and tiles were great, but the bin my cousin and I especially enjoyed was that of the textiles manufacturer. Their bin was filled with every kind of fabric you could imagine. That was the one we spent the most time in, some days lying on the pile chit chatting. It smelled nice in there, ‘new material only’, and it was so soft. We would climb the edge and jump in over and over again. At the end of playing, we’d choose our favourite pieces to take home. On textiles day, we’d come home with huge pieces of faux fur, which we tied up and hung like Santa Claus sacks on our backs, after filling them with other pieces of fabric.

When our mothers were done, our beds had blankets with matching throw pillows.