Show and Tell: The Dresser

I wanted to write about folding laundry. It did not take long, but it did bring me back to this page.

My dresser is quite old. I got it in IKEA 20 years ago and assembled it in New Jersey. It moved a few times from room to room and from floor to floor when we used to own a home. I carried it on my back. It did not need re-assembling. Then it moved in a lift across the ocean and traveled twice more in Jerusalem. Now it stands in place. There is enough room below it to vacuum and wash the floor, and enough room above it to put a few books, a siddur when I daven in my room, a couple of stacks of laundry as I fold it. The dresser has three drawers: top for tops — all t-shirts, undershirts and handkerchiefs. Middle for bottoms — all shorts, jeans, underpants and socks. Bottom for miscellaneous. I don’t open it often.

When I fold my laundry I use the Marie Kondo method of rolling most pieces of clothing into a small cylinder, but then I don’t put them in vertically like she suggests. I put it flat, one on top of the other, so there are two layers of folded clothing. It’s good enough, and the open drawer does not freak me out by being over-organized. Above the dresser is the window where I can see the green of the garden outside and not much more.

The dresser calms me down. It can’t handle infinite development and expansion. All drawers are full. If I wanted to buy more clothes to put in there I would have to throw out old ones. I can’t come up with a better use of the space it occupies. So while I use the dresser many times a day, this is one place in the universe I can’t possibly optimize. I’m done with the dresser. I live with the dresser. I have a dresser. Do I love the dresser? I don’t know. But it lets me be. I wish I could ease into other parts of my life as I eased into dresser ownership.