Self Storage

Part One "Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs! I celebrate myself Sorry. I just can't do it. Walt Whitman starts "Song of Myself," the greatest poem in the world, with those three words. I wish I could follow his lead, start the same way, but I can't. The words sound tinny in my own voicearrogant, wrong. Maybe someday I'll be able to say "I celebrate myself" freely, even joyfully, like he does, but I'm not there yet. Whitman's book saved my life. Leaves of Grass saved my ass. If it wasn't for that book, I might be in jail right now. If it wasn't for that book, I wouldn't be writing this one. I have to admit, it's a bit intimidating to write under Whitman's long and illustrious shadow. I suppose I could try to picture him in his underwear. It worked for Marcia Brady when she gave her big speech (not that Whitman was in the audience at Westdale High). I have an advantage: I've already seen Whitman naked. A series of photos by Thomas Eakins from the early 1880s"Old man, seven photographs." Whitman's name isn't mentioned, but I can tell it's him. Others have thought so, too. He was pretty cute for a sixty-something-year-old. I love how his belly pouches out just a little, the way my daughter Nori's does over her diaper. I love the way he cocks one hip to the sidea little peevish, a little saucy. I love seeing him stripped bare. I guess I have to strip myself bare here. I have to unload all that happened these last few months. If I write it down, there's a chance I'll begin to understand it. One image keeps coming back to me. An image of Sodaba, my neighbor from Afghanistan, hunched inside the storage locker. The front of her burqa was flipped up off her face; it hung down the back of her head like a nun's habit. She was turned slightly away from me; tendrils of hair were plastered against the side of her neck. The wide plane of her left cheek was slick with sweat. That was the first time, the only time, I saw any part of her face. I never learned the true shape of her lips or nose, the full scope of her eyesjust that wet expanse of skin before she realized I was there and pulled the veil back down. The skin of her cheek looked so smooth. It gives me chills to think about it now. But that's not where I want to start. I want to go back to my normal life, before her life collided with mine. Back when I had more simple things to worry aboutmy kids' lunches, my husband's TV addiction, the auctions I attended each week. The auctions. Of course. I could celebrate my self-storage auctions. That is something I think I could do. This is how the auctions work. You get one minute with a flashlight. The auctioneer breaks open the padlock with a blowtorch or bolt cutters, and you get one minute to stand in the doorway of the storage locker. One minute to peer inside and decide whether the wrinkled black trash bags, the taped cardboard boxes, the bicycle parts and beach chairs and afghans that reveal themselves in your mote-filled path of light, are worth your while. You learn to trust your intuition. You learn to listen to that ping inside your gut that tells you to bid. You learn to look for the subtle cluesthe shopping bags with a Beverly Hills address, the boxes marked fragile with a sharp black marker. You learn to avoid certain smellsmold and mildew are no good; you'll probably end up with a bunch of old sweatshirts and socks that someone put in the wash but never bothered to dryBrandeis, Gayle is the author of 'Self Storage' with ISBN 9780345492609 and ISBN 0345492609.