The Closet

One of the good side effects of the current pandemic for me has been slowing down the pace of life and making room for some of the seemingly unimportant things on my To-Do list.

This past week I took up one of the many items on my wish list – purging my closet of excesses. You might think, what’s the big deal about tidying up a closet?! You’re right, the task itself wasn’t a big deal but what I gained at the end of it was something unexpectedly remarkable.

Wait, did I say “gain”? Wasn’t the idea of this exercise to “lose” what I didn’t need? Yes, indeed. To my pleasant surprise though, I did end up gaining something extraordinary in the process.

It wasn’t the first time I was getting rid of the excesses in my closet. I knew exactly what to do. However, my daughter urged me to go about it differently this time by educating myself about a new (to me) method of tidying up known as the KonMari method. As some of you may already know, this method has been invented by the famous tidying expert Marie Kondo.

After educating myself, I began my solitary journey of tidying up my closet.

Applying this method meant, first, being in my closet all by myself in absolute silence, no music, no talking on the phone and no distractions of any kind. The idea was to tune in all my senses and energies single pointedly to this task.

Next, it involved me picking up each garment, holding it close to my heart, using all five senses to “feel” the garment and observing what kind of feelings it evoked. Thus began a meditative process. A process of being in the "now" and assessing how I felt while holding each garment. Did it evoke feelings of happiness? Did it spark joy? If it did not kindle happy feelings instantaneously, it was time to let go of the garment. Sounds easy, right?

I was doing well until I held a shirt that, in addition to evoking feelings, stirred up memories. How does one let go of something that is attached to a memory? Doesn’t it mean that you would be letting go of the memory itself? And memories are precious and irreplaceable, right?

As I was deliberating about this conundrum, it struck me that just as much as this was about tidying up my closet, it was also about tidying up my mind and what’s in it. A process where “contents” of the mind were to be scrutinized and purged as well. It meant letting go of memories that no longer sparked joy, letting go of memories that were so old and rusty that they only cluttered the mind but had no particular feelings attached to them – they were there just because.

As I discarded the shirt and let go of the memories associated with it, there was a feeling of loss. A feeling that I was bereft of something very precious. I proceeded to discard each garment and, as a result, the memories associated with them. As sad as this sounds, may be it wasn’t so bad. Although I was left with a bunch of empty spaces in my mind and in my heart, may be it wasn’t so much a loss but a gain.

I realized that the empty spaces could be looked at as open spaces instead; spaces that were now open to holding fresh new memories. Getting rid of memories that were no longer appealing, made room for memories that are delightful and worth holding on to.

It felt like a liberation of sorts, releasing the old to make place for the new.

As I concluded this project, I felt a surge of positive energy and renewed enthusiasm. Not only was my closet more open and light, my mind was too! Not only my closet, but my heart too was ready to take in new experiences and create fresh memories.

I had never thought that a mundane act of tidying up my closet could lead to something so profound.