I'm not a big fan of having to clean things in general, but I respect it as a necessary evil. If I want my place to be clean, then I'm going to have to work at that. Actively. Unfortunately.
But my closet... Well, that's a horse of a different color.
First of all, no one sees my closet but me. So it's not like I have to keep it clean to impress anyone who might happen to drop by.
Second, it's dark in there. I have the great misfortune of having a closet with no lights in it. So I have to use the main light in my room, which is seriously lacking in these dark dreary depths.
Third, when I clean other spaces, this is where everything goes.
And fourth... I'm kind of a pack rat.
But today, the closet it is.
My mother says that you should have a keep pile, a sell pile, a donate pile, a fix pile... But really, I'm not that organized. And there aren't many things in the closet that I plan to get rid of; just that I want to organize.
I should probably get rid of some of these things...
I get on my hands and knees and start pulling things out one at a time. Or, at least, that's the plan until I discover that some of these things can no longer be pulled out one at a time, as they've gotten tangled in some Mardi Gras beads. Also, in the dim light, it's hard to tell where my feather boa ends and my feather duster begins. This might be trickier than I thought.
Why do I have a ketchup packet in here? Was I eating McDonald's in the closet?
Oh, wait... No. That's my SPECIAL ketchup packet. Definitely keeping that. A good memory attached to that one.
Same with that piece of driftwood. And the one-armed sunglasses. The empty Vaseline jar. The broken curling iron.
They're not just things... They're special things. They're MY things.
They're memories.
This is stupid. Why am I holding onto objects? They're not important. Plenty of them aren't even useful. They're just... clutter.
But I can't get rid of them. Not yet.
I still have hope.
Huh. I just noticed how huge this closet is. Or, at least, how huge it would seem if it were empty. I bet you could hide about five grown men in here...
I wish I hadn't just had that thought. I'm probably not going to be able to sleep tonight now. I'll be worried about the five grown men that could possibly be hiding in my closet.
But then, I guess, if I don't clean it... then they won't fit... And... and... and...
Alright, this isn't going anywhere. It's time to call for reinforcements.
But before I call, as if in a fit of possession by the realm of psychic phenomena, my phone starts ringing.
And it's Zora.
"Hi pretty," she sings. "What are you up to?"
"I'm attempting to escape from the bottomless pit that is my closet."
"Yikes. Have you stumbled upon any trapped miners?"
"Not yet."
"Are you at least wearing one of the hats with the lights on them?"
"As handy as that would be for excavation-al purposes, I don't think I own one."
"Are you sure? I've seen your closet," she quips, "and there ain't no telling what's in that thing."
"I'll let you know if I find one. So what's up?"
"Nothing... I'm bored..."
"You know, my self-esteem always skyrockets when I find out that my best friend only calls me when she's bored."
"Oh, shut up. I call you every day."
"You're bored a lot, I guess."
"No I'm not."
"You know, only boring people get bored."
"I am not boring! I'm unemployed! There's a difference!"
Here's the thing, though... Zora isn't actually unemployed. Well, not in the traditional sense, that is. Not in the, "I got fired from a job and I'm broke and looking desperately for another job and melting into the fabric of my couch as I eat Cheetos in my pajamas and watch infomercials" kind of unemployed. No, of course not. That would be too run-of-the-mill for her.
Zora is an artist. Zora is a masseuse. Zora is a consultant. Zora is whatever it is that Zora feels like being at any given point in time. Zora has had more careers than Barbie.
And here's the thing: even when she's unemployed, as she currently claims to be, she's never broke. She always seems to have money coming in from some past project that she's worked on... Or from some contract she's signed but hasn't begun work on yet.
"Unemployed is hardly an excuse in your case."
"Well I'm not boring. I'm taking a poetry pottery class. Or a pottery poetry class. I'm not really clear on which it is yet. It involves both poetry and pottery. In some form."
"You are the only person I know who would find either of those interesting. You are also probably the only person I know who would sign up for a class without knowing exactly what it is."
"See?", she says playfully. "I'm the opposite of boring."
"Whatever."
"You know what? I'm going to grab a pick-ax and help dig you out of your closet."
"I was just about to call and ask you if you'd do that."
"Oh," she says, sounding disappointed.
"What's wrong?"
"It was more enticing when I offered out of the blue as a nice gesture. Now somehow I feel used."
"Wait, wait, wait! It's still a nice gesture!" Damn it. Note to self: in the future, don't make Zora feel like I'm taking advantage of her altruism. "I'd be really grateful!"
"Hmmm... Okay. Oooh! Can I practice my feng shui?"
"Is that yoga?"
"No. Feng shui. I took a class in it. I can rearrange your stuff so that it will align in the balance between heaven and earth and bring you good fortune."
"Why did you take a class on that?"
"It's neat."
"You don't really believe in that stuff, do you?" I ask, skeptically. Zora is all horoscopes, and moon signs, and crystals, and meditation. I'm more likely to find my solitude and sanity by searching for the end of the internet until ungodly hours of the morning.
"Abby, trust me," she says, reassuringly. "It could help."
"Help? With what?"
"With turning your luck around. You're not exactly on a winning streak."
"It's not going to help. You know I don't believe in that stuff."
"Well, it can't hurt, right? And I DO believe in it. And even if YOU DON'T believe in it, it'll still give me peace of mind. It'll make me feel like we're starting you off again on the right track. I know you want that."
"Not enough to..."
"Listen," she cuts me off, "if you want an unemployed slave laborer to come over and help you dig through your junk, then you're going to at least have to humor her. And let her practice her ancient Chinese dwelling arrangement skills."
I do want to not have to do this... Or, at the very least, to not have to do this alone.
"You're on."
"I'll be over in an hour."
"You live 20 minutes away."
"I know, but I have some things to find before I come over. Ciao!"
"Bye."
Now, I know full well that it isn't going to take her 4o minutes to find anything in her meticulously manicured apartment. She barely owns anything. She calls it minimalism. I call it reckless abandonment of potentially pertinent belongings.
Every time she takes a class, she stocks up on whatever materials she needs. And by "stocks up", I mean STOCKS UP. She treats every new class as though it's a trade that she intends to be a master of. She buys every supply that you could possibly need. And she doesn't just cut corners and buy the cheap stuff that every other beginner uses. No, not Zora. She researches what the pros use, and she will settle for nothing less.
And then, when she moves on from that class, she gets rid of everything. She gives it to her classmates. Or she donates it to Goodwill. Or she puts it up on Craigslist for free.
I tell her that she's wasting her money. I tell her that she should buy cheaper things if she knows that whatever her newfound interest lies in might be a temporary fascination. I tell her to keep the things she buys in case she every again wants to pick up this passing fancy that she has discarded as quickly as she became enamored of it. Zora says it's not a waste of money, because it's an investment in herself.
I don't get that. I probably never will. If I think I'm going to use something, I keep it. But I guess that's why Zora isn't the one who needs help cleaning out her closet.
Well I guess there's no use starting before she shows up... Maybe I can take a nap...
Before I know it, my perky blonde friend shows up. She's just under five feet tall, and probably tips the scales at 95 pounds. I'd call her petite, but she calls herself "fun size". She's wearing another one of the outfits that is so perfectly Zora. An army green fishing vest, a blue turtleneck, and green and blue plaid pants. It wouldn't look right on anyone else, but on her, it just sort of makes sense.
"Thanks for coming."
"Where do you keep your trash bags?"
"You know where the trash is."
"No, your trash BAGS. We're going to need one for the closet. And by "one", I mean "several". Actually, I mean, "as many as you can find."
"They're under the kitchen sink." Isn't that where everyone keeps garbage bags?
"I'm on it!"
She scurries over to the "kitchen" of my small studio apartment to grab the bag. I don't like calling it a kitchen. It's more like a side of my room. Yes, technically, it has it's own little alcove. But it's not a real kitchen. I have a hot plate and a microwave in lieu of an oven and a stove. I have a small refrigerator and freezer combination that looks better suited to a dorm room than to the apartment of an adult (or someone pretending to be an adult, as I apparently am).
Bag in hand, we march over to the other end of my apartment. The end that made me get the apartment to begin with. The part where I have two closets.
Yes, two. In a space barely big enough to house one little me, I have two giant closets. One has sliding mirrored doors. That's where I keep my clothes, boots, jackets, and the like. All the things that I need on a daily basis. All the things that I plan to see again.
The other is an awkward walk-in space that I think used to be some sort of utility closet. Maybe for a water heater or something. All I know is that when I moved in it was empty, creepy, and large enough for me to see the potential. So once a few shelves and bars were added, it became my own private Narnia. That's where trinkets and baubles, tchotchkes and mementos all disappear into the darkness, never to be seen nor heard from again. And I have no idea what's hiding in there.
The magical closet. The closet of mystery. The Loch Ness closet.
Zora goes over to the closet and flings herself to the ground energetically and dramatically. As though the act of closet cleaning is some sort of exciting event and one should want to be on the front lines. Not only is she ready for this battle; she's running towards it. Excited, even. Clearly, she's insane.
"Are you ready to jump into the rabbit hole?"
"Um..."
"Quit stalling. Red pill or blue pill?"
"I don't remember The Matrix well enough to know which pill is which."
"You're impossible."
I sit down beside her. I hope that's as good an indication as any that I'm ready to go through with this.
"You do the honors," she says. "Pull something out. We'll make piles. One to keep, one to toss..."
"No, not piles," I interrupt. "My mother used to do the piles. I hate the piles."
"It makes it easier."
"No it doesn't," I insist. "It makes me have to force seemingly disparate items into the same tiny categories of consciousness. It cheapens the value of everything I hold sacred. I refuse to make the piles."
"Abby, the things that you hold sacred shouldn't be lying in a closet anyhow."
"No, no. That's where you're wrong. They're so sacred that they HAVE to be in a closet. It's my shrine."
"To what?"
"To the past. To things I need to remember."
"If things are worth remembering, you'll remember them without stuff." She isn't the first person to make this argument to me, but it's never made me budge before, and it's sure not going to make me budge today.
"But I LIKE the stuff," I say, with all the conviction of a tantrum-ing two year old child, and certainly as terrible. "Can't we just 'fing shooey' it around?"
"Feng shui. Part of feng shui is getting clutter out of your life."
"It's just one closet. It's not that bad."
"A cluttered space is a sign of a cluttered mind."
"That makes sense with me, actually."
"That's why I said it," she assures me, looking smug.
"I happen to like my cluttered mind."
"Yeah, but you don't like your cluttered life. You were the one who started cleaning, not me. I'm just here to encourage and facilitate."
"Okay, you're right." I hate it when she's right. "Where do we start?"
"Grab your flashlight and pick-ax, and start digging."
I reach into the seeming abyss that is my closet... or, more technically, I pull out the first thing my fingers find in the box on the floor that's closest to where I am now sitting.
"I guess we start here," I say, showing her the object I've grabbed. "At the beginning, in a strange sort of way..." I think about him as I examine turn it in my hand.
"Well I think you know, Abby," Zora says cheerfully, "that to start from the very beginning is a very good place to start."
