Living in Life's Closets

 

My husband and I looked at a house this week that we both wanted to love—closer to my work, in the city limits for him, a one-of-a-kind home built in 1934.  But despite its outward charm, once inside, I couldn’t imagine living there and neither could he. While the water issues were problematic, what held me back most were the closets. Granted I’m on a path to minimalism, letting go of more and more clothes every week, but the size and dilapidated shape of those closets gave me serious pause.  I asked myself if I were being too shallow? Perhaps it was time to be more interested in a garden than a closet?

 And then I remembered all the closets that were special spaces for me: I burrowed into the cedar closet that led to an attic when I was a little girl, hid in mine as an adolescent to avoid my little sister and visitors I didn’t want to entertain, sat in the back of my walk-in closet in graduate school and had long soul-searching conversations with myself in a mirror. Today, winnowing and organizing my spacious, clean closet is a dependable source of joy.

Maybe I just love little spaces. Maybe I am shallow and rearranging things calms me down, fills me up, and occupies my time in ways writing and meditating do not. Maybe I’ll outgrow this desire and need at some point.

But for now, closets will be a factor in any new place we move.  Maybe someday I’ll have as few clothes as they did during the Great Depression and spend my time outside talking with neighbors as I hang them on a line.  But trying to become that person before I truly am there is a source of discouragement, frustration, and perhaps even shame.  I think it’s better to know who I am today, what I want, and trust that something that pleases me is also out there.