A closet was emptied, on a Sunday in February, in a Brooklyn apartment, by a woman who had, the night before, on the phone with a friend, said: I don't even know what's in there.
The closet was, before the closet was emptied, the kind of closet that is not, on most days, opened. The closet was the closet in the guest room. The closet was the closet in which the woman had, since the woman had moved in, accumulated the things that did not, in any obvious way, belong anywhere else.
The closet contained, by the woman's own count, three boxes of photographs the woman had not looked at in ten years. The closet contained, by the same count, two boxes of papers the woman had not, in some cases, opened since college. The closet contained, in the back, on the floor, three bags of clothes the woman had been meaning to take to the donation center for the better part of a decade.
The closet was emptied, by the woman, in a single Sunday.
The conversation
The conversation was, by the woman's own description, about the things people keep. The conversation was, by the same description, with a friend. The friend had, the week before, helped the friend's mother empty a house. The house had been, by the friend's own description, in the family for forty years. The house had, by the friend's own description, in the back of the basement, a collection of objects that the friend's mother had been, in the friend's phrase, unable to part with.
The friend was asked, on the phone, what the objects were. The friend said: my father's things. My sister's things. My own things, from when I was a child. Some of them I did not, until that week, know existed.
The friend was asked what the friend had done with the objects. The friend said, after a long pause: we took them out. We looked at them. We put most of them in a bag, and the bag went to the donation center.
The friend was asked how the friend had decided. The friend said: I decided that the things were not, in fact, my father's. They were the memory of my father. The memory was mine. The memory did not, in the end, need the things.
The woman thought, by the woman's own description, for two days. On Sunday, in February, the woman opened the closet.
The photographs
The photographs were in a shoebox, on the top shelf.
The photographs contained people the woman did not recognize. The photographs contained people the woman did recognize, but had, in some way, forgotten — a college roommate, a cousin the woman had not seen in twenty years, a man the woman had dated briefly in 2009 and had, in the abstract, also forgotten.
The photographs were looked at, by the woman, for about an hour. Most of the photographs were put, by the woman, in a bag, to be recycled. Four photographs were kept.
One photograph, of the woman's mother, at thirty, holding the woman as an infant, was kept. One photograph, of the woman's father, at fifty, on a beach the woman did not remember visiting, was kept. One photograph, of the woman's grandmother, in the kitchen, in an apron, was kept. One photograph, of the woman, at twenty-two, at a party the woman did not remember attending, was kept.
The four photographs were placed, by the woman, in a smaller box. The smaller box was placed, by the woman, on the bookshelf, in the living room, where the smaller box can, on most days, be seen.
The papers
The papers were in two boxes, on the floor.
The papers were, by the woman's own description, the papers of a person who has, for most of the woman's adult life, kept papers. The papers contained tax returns, going back to 2008. The papers contained utility bills, going back further. The papers contained notes from college, on lined paper, in a handwriting the woman no longer recognized as the woman's own. The papers contained, in a folder the woman had labeled "important," a number of documents that turned out, on inspection, not to be important at all.
The papers were gone through, by the woman, slowly, for about two hours. The tax returns were kept. A folder labeled "medical" was kept, which contained, among other things, a record of a broken wrist in 2007. A folder labeled "this might be important" was kept, which contained, on inspection, mostly old pay stubs.
The rest of the papers were put, by the woman, in a recycling bag. The recycling bag was, by the time the woman was done, very heavy.
The clothes
The clothes were in three bags, in the back of the closet.
The clothes were, by the woman's own description, the clothes of a person who has, for most of the woman's adult life, kept clothes the person does not wear. The clothes contained coats the woman had not worn in five years. The clothes contained dresses the woman had not worn in ten. The clothes contained, in one bag, a number of sweaters the woman had, at one time or another, planned to mend.
The sweaters were not mended, on this Sunday. The clothes were not taken, on this Sunday, to the donation center. The bags were put, instead, by the door.
On Monday morning, before work, the bags were taken, by the woman, to the donation center, which is, in the neighborhood, a ten-minute walk. The bags were dropped, by the woman, at the door. The woman did not, in the end, go inside.
The closet
The closet, when the closet was emptied, was, for a few days, completely empty.
The woman stood, on the Monday after the closet was emptied, in the doorway of the guest room, and looked at the empty closet. The closet was, by absolute measurements, a closet that did not, in any obvious sense, contain anything. The closet was a closet that had, in the last three years, contained three boxes of photographs, two boxes of papers, and three bags of clothes. The closet was, now, a closet that contained, only, itself.
The woman stood, by the woman's own description, in the way one stands in front of a thing one has just emptied. The woman felt, by the same description, briefly, the absence of the thing that had been removed.
The closet has, in the months since, had a few things put back in. The closet has, on the top shelf, the smaller box of photographs. The closet has, on the floor, a suitcase the woman has not, in some years, used. The closet has, on a hook, on the door, the apron the woman bought, last winter, in the East Village.
The closet is, in the main, empty.
What has been learned
The woman has learned, in the months since the closet was emptied, that empty closets are not, in the end, about empty closets.
The closet was, in the years the closet was being filled, a kind of holding pattern. The closet was the place the woman put the things the woman was not, yet, ready to deal with. The closet was the place the woman put the things that were, in some way, the woman's, but that the woman did not, in any practical sense, use.
The emptying was not, in the end, about the things. The emptying was about the fact of the emptying. The emptying was, in the way some things are, an act of attention. The emptying was the small, deliberate, mostly-impractical thing the woman did, on a Sunday in February, that changed, in some small way, the way the woman thought about the things the woman keeps.
The woman is, in the months since, still the kind of person who keeps things. The woman has, in the months since, begun, again, to put things in the closet. The woman has put a bag of papers in the closet, in March. The woman has put a box of books in the closet, in April. The woman has put, in May, a small stack of letters the woman has not yet decided what to do with.
The woman has, in the months since, also, on most Sundays, taken things out.