Kitchen Sinks & Closets (Part 1)
I spend a lot of time at the kitchen sink. I spend a considerable time, too, in my closet. We all do. Those of us fortunate enough to have one of each. Recently, I was scrolling through pics on my phone and became aware of a slightly weird obsession I seem to have with both kitchen sinks and closets. I have an alarming number of photos of both in my image library. “This deserves some attention” I decided. Why am I taking so many pics of my closet, a lifeless tangle of limp arms and legs? Why am I taking (and even posting, gasp!) so many pics of my kitchen sink, littered with smeared saucers and discarded spoons? Let’s find out. We’ll start with the closet, since that is where most of us start our day (or is it?).
The closet.
In my life, I have cluttered a number of different iterations of closets. My first closet, or rather the first closet that I was old enough to actually use in any real sense, was a traditional slim, one rack nook with a thin veneer paneled sliding door across its front. I remember the shallow, round disk that was its handle. The house that it belonged to was build in the 70’s—a traditional Washington state split level house, complete with wall to wall shag green and brown carpet (an insult to the natural world that it may have been trying to emulate).
My closet housed the usual assortment of things a closet should: clothes, shoes, boxes of miscellany (probably in my case mostly tattered picture books and art supplies) and other scattered detritus (stuffed animals, doll body parts, mate-less socks). But what I remember most distinctly about that first closet was that its limited real estate was taken up largely by an orange and yellow colored vinyl toy box. That toy box had been among my first possessions—if indeed a child can actually rightly possess anything—and its value to me was much greater than the sum of its contents. Truly, it wasn’t even the toys that the box held that I cherished. No indeed, it was the box itself that I loved.
This toy box had been, since my earliest days of mobility, a box that I would climb into. As I grew in strength and dexterity, I would often crawl into the box, eliciting the toys’ unprompted squeaks and tinny tunes as I nestled in among them, some soft and plush, others not. In fact, my mother has pictures of me inside the box, lid open, peacefully asleep inside its snug wooden walls. Eventually, the box was moved into my bedroom closet—perhaps its flamboyant yellow and orange flowers were lo longer en vogue—where I continued to entomb myself, even when I had to fold my limbs into commas and question marks to fit.
By the time I was eight years old, I was brave enough to even close the lid of the box, fully entombing myself in its dark and quiet body. It was beautiful. Still. Like a happy, toy filled womb (although certainly not as comfortable, perhaps equally as cozy). Even its smell was a comfort to me: a combination of crayon wax, cedar wood and dust bunnies that I would bottle and wear as perfume today if I could. That box was my cocoon. My basket afloat in the river Nile. Protection. Safety. Solace.
The fact that the box was in the closet, made its power even greater. It was a dark, sacred place into which I could take a break from the world. Take a rest. And come out renewed.
I don’t know what happened to that toy box. I imagine that my continued climbing in and out of it took its toll. I’m afraid eventually it was discarded. And it has left me longing for its promise ever since.
To this day, I turn to the closet for solace. But since childhood, my closets have become much more densely populated—less peaceful places. They no longer contain some clothes and a few stray toys and books. They store too many clothes: winter, summer, fancy, plain, fitting, aspiring, hated and loved. They store books read and unread, gifts opened and unopened, photos, paintings, letters, journals, hopes, dreams, and disappointments. And sometimes secrets. Things that cannot or should not be revealed just yet (ever?). My adult closets are always in need of cleaning out. There is rarely enough room for me to curl up and rest inside. I have strangled that quiet, sacred space with stuff; and now, that stuff strangles me.
But still, I feel the promise that the closet offers: a place to tuck away a treasure or curl up tightly and cry all alone. Because it is essential to be alone, sometimes. It is necessary and vital. How else can we truly know ourselves, if we can never be alone. How otherwise can we feel our own grief, joy, fear, love. And more importantly, our own brilliant creativity—our life giving energy! How many writers, after all, have spun tales from the floor of their wardrobe, waiting for the stillness of night to tip toe into perhaps the only room in their house that is their own. Private but for the quiet company of headless jackets and legless skirts—like writing in a busy cafe filled with stranger who will never interrupt with their wants and needs.
Today, I live in a house with a generous-sized closet. No longer a sliding door, but a door to a small room. Although half of the closet belongs to my husband (well, maybe less than half, if I’m being honest), I have more than enough room to hang my clothes (still more than I need) and store the other miscellany of my life. It still seems to be in perpetual need of cleaning out, but I am finding as I get older that I have fewer things to hide in it. Of course I will always have to fill the pockets of winter coats with Christmas gifts and tuck impulse purchases behind the fluff of my multitude of cardigans, but not much else. I am learning to live out in the open more. To be more comfortable with my own evolution—including my flaws, frailties, and mistakes.
That is not to say I do not need to be alone in the closet from time to time. I do. I do go there to cry alone. I do go there to write, sometimes. I do still find it a tremendous comfort . . . even without my beloved toy box cocoon.
I suppose this is why I am so obsessed with closets. They represent the inside life. The part of our life (at least mine) that is often short-changed. Our inside life—our soul—needs attention. It needs nourishment and care. When Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “nothing can bring you peace but yourself” I think he was talking about the closet, too. He was inviting readers to spend time inside the their own closet so that they can find peace within. Just like the closet. Sometimes, it needs to be visited, cleaned out, reorganized . . . perhaps even photographed. And loved.
After all, it is peace within that brings peace without.