Friday Dispatch: Drawers & Cupboards

Two parallel stories of cleaning house

Friday greetings,

My mom and I are on a roll. Slowly and steadily, we’re sorting through drawers and cupboards and shelves and surfaces, a first pass as she and my Dad begin the multifaceted process of downsizing. They have lived in their house since December 1984; we moved in on my mom’s 40th birthday, about a month before I turned 11.

So far, we’ve worked our way through the downstairs bathroom, the kitchen, and two free-standing hoosier cabinets in the the entry room. If you walked into the side door the house, a Victorian built in the 1880s, you would probably not notice that we’d done anything. To the naked eye, nothing much has changed. You still see the “Murray’s Bagels” baseball hat hanging on a hook, the mess of shoes and boots, the canvas bags. You still glance over at the one chest that was originally part of our kitchen in Buffalo, and the vases and bowls and old tupperware through its glass doors. You still enter the kitchen and experience a home completely inhabited and lived in, the table my mom remembers curling up underneath when her father died – she was 32 – the treasures and tchotchkes from decades’ worth of travels and friendship, every last object with a history of its own.

What you don’t see is what’s no longer there – the dreck and detritus that collects, seemingly all by itself, over time. Our efforts have so far yielded several bags of trash, a few for recycling, and two sizable boxes of bits and bobs to Goodwill. More importantly, they’ve revealed what’s left: Things that may be utilitarian, cherished, and storied. Things my parents may want to take with them to their next home. Things my sisters and I may find useful or hold dear. Things that have value, emotional or material. Things the “kids” – meaning my son and daughter and my niece and nephew – may want to hold onto for their future homes. What remains beyond that will be sold or given away.

Questions that have come up:

What’s the low-hanging fruit here?

What can I let go of?

Why am I keeping this?

What purpose does this serve?

Could this be of use?

And yes, some version of Marie Kondo’s (in)famous, Does it spark joy?

It’s a lot of work, and we are also enjoying ourselves in the process. And then, after three or four hours, we call it quits for the day, close the drawers, latch the cupboards, haul away the trash, and decide where we will begin again next time.

You can’t do this work continuously. You have to tackle one room at a time, and within that one room, one small area. Then you have to go item by item. You have to allow for whatever arises – moments of levity and laughter along with memories and questions and attachments. It’s all there, because that’s what happens in a life: Stuff accumulates. Balls of twine and jars of rubberbands mingle with sterling silver toast holders and gold-leaf-laced mugs; wads of tissue paper and forgotten water bottles and one grandmother’s picnic tablecloth and the other grandmother’s first cookbook, old batteries, mismatched saucers, brine bags, loose screws, expired meds, yellowed bandages, dull knives… it’s all mixed up together. “Makes we wish we’d done this a long time ago!” my mom exclaims.

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Related reading: 11 things about what we keep, from earlier this week.

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I have a friend who has been a lifeline for me since October 7. Once a week or so, though not on any specific schedule, we have a long walking phone date. We have established the kind of trust that happens only over time – this is someone I’ve known for nearly a decade – where we feel safe to say anything, explore, wrestle, retract, fumble, lose our minds, change our minds, and sometimes find ourselves. Most of all, with this person I have permission to show up in a way that is undefended, authentic, and fully present. She tells me she experiences the same with me.

We are both Jewish mothers. We have both been active in progressive political circles and movements. We both have a deep love of Israel and a complex relationship to that love. We’ve gone up, down, and all around.

This morning, after 75 minutes of early-morning conversation that covered a ton of ground politically, intellectually, and emotionally, we looked at the time and began our Jewish goodbye, both needing to get on with our work days.

“What will you take with you from our conversation today?” I aked. I often offer this question at the conclusion of a writing group or coaching session, too, as an invitation to intentionally gather up what we need or want to spend more time with.

She responded. Then she asked me what I would be taking with me.

First, I told her I’d be taking gratitude for the time spent together. And I’m taking a breath, I said, quite literally, pausing to take a breath. And then as I continued, I realized something. For months now, what she and I have been doing, individually and inside the container of our friendship, is not unlike what my mom and I are doing in her house.

We are sorting through what we’ve accumulated in our 50-ish years of living as learning about ourselves Jewishly. We are examining what we’ve learned in years of anti-racism and pro-Democracy work in our own country and how to square it with what we’re experiencing in this time. We are grappling with what’s true, what’s useful, what’s attachment, what we can let go, and what we will keep. We are opening every drawer and cupboard, without judgment. We are patient with each other, if not always with ourselves or the fact that the process is laborious and ongoing.

It’s hard work. It can be emotionally exhausting. The isolation so many Jews are experiencing right now, those who feel thrown to the wind by the far left and used by the far right, is real. Our anger at Netanyahu and his extremist government is real. Our anger at the minimizing of antisemitism is real. Our anguish at the hostage situation is real. Our brokenheartedness at the destruction and loss of life in Gaza is real. We are real. Our history is real. And I will continue to hold that the present moment is more complicated than how much of the world is portraying it.

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Open every drawer. Empty every cupboard.

Do this with someone you trust. Someone you can laugh and cry and then eat a bagel with. Do this in containers of time – an hour or three.

If you’re Jewish and could use such a container, I offer Co-Exploring Sessions. These are 90-minute sessions (phone, Zoom, or in person) devoted to holding space for you to safely open some of your own Jewish drawers and cupboards.

Learn more and schedule here.

You may never feel done. You may not solve anything. Sometimes, it may feel formidable or even impossible. That’s ok. Just keep going.

Shabbat Shalom and love,

Jena

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