Commonplaces are collections of thoughts or other symbolic representations of identity. I believe a closet also be considered a commonplace. If I looked in my closet about a month ago (before I broke down and cleaned it), I had clothes from different stages and experiences in my life. My closet contained my size 5 jeans (which I will NEVER pour myself into again in this lifetime), wedding dress, maternity clothes, Varsity Letterman's jacket, Penn State University windbreaker, knee braces, crutches, thick wool sweaters (never to be worn again as long as I live in NM), a Boppy (for breast feeding), softball trophies, to name just a few items. And, I don't even want to talk about the shoes! I think I disclosed that I have a shoe addiction. Certain clothes for me represent certain identities and roles that I have had or participated in - jobs, friends, activities, boyfriends, husband,family, motherhood, and etc.......
Unfortunately, my closet is a "catch-all," but is that really a bad thing? Walking into my closet is a peek into my private life, and it serves as a place of memories worthy of reflection to me. Sometimes if I need a reminder of who I am, and a reminder of my own value, I can go to my closet.
In my girlhood, I wrote poetry, and that was a commonplace. On occasion, I still do write poetry - so that in retrospect proves to me that females never leave their "Girlhood." We are just females at different stages of "Girlhood."
I would have never thought of my closet as a commonplace, but it makes a lot of sense. It is the one place where we "display" our apparel, which is a reflection of our identities. And some of us don't clean it often, so we can literally see years of our lives in it.
ReplyDeleteNora
I love this post, Yolanda! What a great way of looking at a commonplace that is often overlooked! It is as if we wear different identities throughout our lives!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! I love the idea of being surrounded by the material your identity was constructed with. It foreshadows the Rohan reading.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really cool idea and I really like what you have all said. Closets can be such emotional roller coasters. Sometimes you see things you can't believe you ever wore in public. But then you find your favorite shirt and life is good. So certainly our closets tell us much about ourselves. In addition, it's not just clothing that ends up there. My closet is full of old school related papers and DVDs and magazines. My closet really is a commonplace.
ReplyDeleteI can really see a closet as a personal commonplace book, but be careful to make the distinctions between the space where you are collecting ideas and messages and the commonplaces themselves. So, the Boppy, for example, is probably a commonplace. It stands in for motherhood, for ideals of breastfeeding and being natural, it is a product that honors parenting, etc. So I'd just classify the closet as a commonplace collection space rather than a commonplace itself.
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