06/29/2025
Death cleaning, anyone?
After her friend’s father died, leaving his loved ones to sort through his things, Ann Patchett decided it was time to get rid of some of her own belongings. “The closer I got to the places where I slept and worked, the more complicated my choices became. The sandwich-size ziplock of my grandmother’s costume jewelry nearly sank me, all those missing beads and broken clasps,” she writes. Later, Patchett packs away a dozen etched crystal champagne flutes, collected during her 30s and long abandoned on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet. “Had I imagined that, at some point, 12 people would be in my house wanting champagne?” Patchett writes. “Who did I think I was going to be next? F. Scott Fitzgerald?” At the link in our bio, read Patchett’s essay on parting with her possessions—and ideas of who she once aspired to be: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/mkTzxQ
