Things Left in Closets
Recent events have put me back in my old Philadelphia house. I often think about former homes in terms of their requirements for cleaning. I know the scratches in the floor of the Tulip Street house because I used to Swiffer mop it every week. I know the corners of the room I came of age in because I used to sweep it. I know the weird floorboards and fireplaces of my Bryn Mawr life because I was constantly battling 1880s dust bunnies. I’m not quite sure yet how I will remember this apartment. Maybe the wad of hair that the washer exposes every time it spin-cycles itself out of its nook.
In the Philadelphia house, there was a thin sheet of metal that reinforced the right edge of the closet, some quickie renovation blemish. There was a very small crack between the sheet and the doorframe. When I first moved in, I shoved a bunch of discarded wall art and a loose shelf from my IKEA desk in there. Every time I vacuumed the closet, I’d make a mental note not to forget those things were there. When I gave away my desk when I moved out, I had to run up the stair to grab that leaf of particle board: and here’s a shelf! I think I remembered taking everything out of that crack when I left, but my move was chaotic and full of grief and my mother was determined to make good time to Pittsburgh. I never really got a chance to sit in that room and thank it for the two really messy years I spent growing up there.
Now that there is just a spring ahead of my move back to America, I have been thinking a lot about the process of leaving. I have accumulated so many belongings here, mainly the twins of things I had in the US. There is no reason to bring these duplicates back: they’d be expensive to ship and once back, what would I do with 3 IKEA lamps and a giant blanket? They are relics of this time. They won’t fit in a future life. I don’t know what to do with them. I think of them like the items left behind in Pripyat, Ukraine. They won’t decay for 35 years, but somehow that possibility seems more comforting than the image of a hotel staff member coming across them and disposing of them.
I am looking for connection. I try to remind myself that this is human, part of this experience. Sometimes it just feels weak.
