I’m terrorized by my closet. Like a stranger walking into a rough neighborhood for the first time, careful not to make eye contact with anyone, I have to sneak up on it.
Why? Well, on the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, my score on the “Sensation” dimension slumps right into the cellar, down there with the musty old fruit jars, the cobwebs and piles of coal. People who rate a high score on the “S” function are well grounded in the physical world, and enjoy occupations such as massage therapy, cattle rustling, and organizing closets.
I have little going for me in this arena. The physical world annoys me, always has, always will. I know that I won’t fret about being dead because I’ll never again have to floss my teeth. I don’t mind doing it once or twice, but pesky physical chores like this never stay done. You have to floss over and over, you have to wash dishes again and again. It’s exhausting.
My mind always seems to hover about twenty feet from my body. When I accidentally bang into a chair or a doorjamb, I’m always surprised and, quite frankly, insulted. “What are you doing in my way?” I ask of these objects, though in silence. You never know who might be listening.
The person who owned the condo before me installed a closet organizer and added four mirrored sliding glass doors. I’m sure her possessions lived in a happy, organized array. Not so, mine. In fact, I cannot approach the closet without seeing myself defeated in one or all of the mirrored panels spanning the width of the bedroom.
Peeking inside the double-decker enclosure reminds me more of looking into a filing cabinet filled with memories, dreams, and failures than of searching for clothing in a closet.
The teal suede outfit that almost fit when I bought it on sale at I Magnin in 1988 still wants to come out and play. Not likely. I’ve worn it only once, and that was on the occasion of a boring personal ad date. Next to it hangs the black rayon tango skirt with a handkerchief hem of heavy fringe I bought at the same time. I only tangoed once, and again, it was on a date, a very bad one, but not with the same boring guy for whom I wore the teal suede.
The white plastic “Georgiou” garment bag holds a two-piece evening suit with a double-breasted jacket and a long skirt with slit. I thought it would make me a credible-looking partner for a wealthy man who wined and dined me at the St. Francis yacht club, but the color black sucks the life out of my already-sallow complexion and, after a brief engagement entitled, “What was I thinking?” I put it away. Some day, it will make a Goodwill shopper very happy.
My favorite dress hides inside a white Macy’s plastic bag. If I could squeeze into a size 6 again, I would wear it on Halloween with my Tina Turner wig. Brightly colored sequins in a flame pattern reach up toward the bodice and down the sleeves of the black dress. Short, short, short, a true tart dress if there ever was one.
I also own two cowboy shirts which I wear every seven or eight years. One is ivory satin with black trim and the kind of pearl snap buttons that mesmerized me as a child. The other one is red with a V-shaped row of white fringe on the back and white fringe running down the sleeves, a serious nuisance at dinner.
I have a fantasy that one day I’ll get drunk and toss away everything I’ve not worn in the past six months. Isn’t that what all the good housekeeping magazines recommend? The six month rule? Heck, I could use the two-year rule, but after that ninety percent of the closet would still stand gaping.
Maybe one day I’ll take a lesson from my boyfriend, whose half of the closet is neatly arranged by category: pants, shirts, jackets, all in good repair, clean and ready to go.
Nah.
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Rosie Sorenson is an award-wining writer whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and other publications. Her new photo essay book, They Had Me at Meow: Tails of Love from the Homeless Cats of Buster Hollow, is about her thirteen years of loving and being loved by a colony of smart, funny feral cats. To learn more and to purchase the book, please visit her website: www.theyhadmeatmeow.com.
