Spring Fling

It’s the time of year when we become reacquainted with what’s been hiding out in the back of the closet. The weather’s turning, necessitating an unearthing, a rediscovery of clothes that have been hanging there silently, awaiting their turn. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, at the back end of May, there are gradually — almost begrudgingly — more warm days than cool ones. One day soon you’ll hang up your coat for the last time and won’t think about it again until fall.

I’ve been taking bags of clothes to the thrift store, stuff that I’ve hung onto for too long, that’s been occupying hangers and drawer space and head space. It feels good to part with things, to get that real estate back in both my apartment and my brain. No longer must I have a conversation with that green jacket every time I open the hall closet, no longer is it part of the consideration set. Get rid of enough old things and you can almost see your life a little more clearly. You think those old polo shirts are just sitting there, not harming anyone, but once they’re gone, there’s just less to contemplate.

My friend Minju told me she was cleaning out her closet recently and happened upon that big box of loose snapshots anyone who came of age before digital cameras has hiding in the recesses of their storage nook. She pulled the box down from the shelf and began going through them, photos of her as a child, in high school and college, old pictures of her family. She’d always planned to “do something” with the pictures, as we all do, but what? Put them in an album? Digitize them so they’ll be captured on our devices with the rest of our cloud-contained archives? Deciding she wanted to keep the photos close at hand so she’d actually look at them, Minju selected a bunch to put in a basket in her living room. Now, when she’s sitting on the couch, instead of scrolling on her phone, she might pick up the stack of photos. When visitors come over, they might flip through them.

Spring cleaning airs things out, replaces stacks of rarely worn sweaters with room to maneuver. It feels good to get rid of things, but it also feels good to purposefully decide what to fill the space with. What else are we storing in closets and crawl spaces, out of sight and mind, that we’d like to have present in our everyday lives? The old pictures, the love letters, the postcards and birthday cards and childhood artwork and binders full of mix CDs, maybe shoeboxes full of mix tapes. All those things we saved to do something with someday. What might we do with them now?

THE LATEST NEWS

Trump Administration

• The Supreme Court extended the ban on the Trump administration’s use of a wartime law to deport Venezuelans while a lower court re-examines the case.

• After intelligence agencies undercut the White House’s justification for deporting Venezuelan migrants, a Trump appointee told an intelligence official to redo the assessment.

• The Department of Homeland Security is considering taking part in a reality TV show that would have immigrants go through a series of challenges to win American citizenship.

• Senate Democrats oppose more than $3 billion in proposed weapons sales to Qatar and the U.A.E., saying those countries have cultivated inappropriate financial ties to Trump.

• Several Republicans blocked their party’s megabill from advancing because they said it would add too much to the deficit.

Other Big Stories

• At least four people were killed after a tornado struck St. Louis, leaving a trail of collapsed buildings, uprooted trees and downed power lines.

• Ten inmates escaped from a New Orleans jail after removing a toilet from the wall. Officials say they believe the inmates may have had help from jail workers.

• The ratings firm Moody’s downgraded the United States’ credit rating. The new rating could raise borrowing costs for consumers, though similar downgrades in the past proved mostly symbolic.

• A bronze statue of Melania Trump, erected near her hometown in Slovenia, was chopped off at the feet and stolen, the police said.

• Ed Smylie, who led the team of NASA engineers that devised a way to save the Apollo 13 crew with duct tape, died at 95.

HARVARD AND THE GOVERNMENT

Linda McMahon, the education secretary, says she wants to end the Trump administration’s standoff with Harvard.