Last Friday when I closed the door to our Louisiana home for the last time, I lingered for a moment with my hand on the doorknob.
I put some thought into actually closing that door. I did it slowly and with great deliberation. I said a little prayer for the house and thanked the walls for sheltering me for 26 years. Okay it sounds a little wacky, but I actually stroked the doorframe.
After a minute or two, I realized that although I was closing the door, I could mentally look back through it at any time. It was a partial glass door in more ways than one. Although I wouldn't be stepping back into my old house, I could remember my life there as if looking through the glass top of the door and that would be sufficient.
The tears did come a little later when I drove away, but at that moment of closing the door, I really was at peace.
Now my mind is on the figurative doors that I'll be opening over the next months as I make a new life in Virginia.
I hope you won't zone out and skip over the following poem, thinking that you don't "get" or like poetry.... give this poem by David Wagoner a try.
It'ss about how an actor might approach the direction to "open a door."
There are a lot of ways to go about it...... How are you opening the doors in your life?
At The DoorWhen what a character does is what he is. The script may say, He goes to the door And exits or She goes out the door stage left. But you see your fingers touching the doorknob, Closing around it, turning it As if by themselves. The latch slides Out of the strike-plate, the door swings on its hinges, And you're about to take that step Over the threshold into a different light. For the audience, you may simply be Disappearing from the scene, yet in those few seconds You can reach for the knob as the last object on earth You wanted to touch. Or you can take it Warmly like the hand your father offered Once in forgiveness and afterward Kept to himself. Or you can stand there briefly, as bewildered As by the door of a walk-in time-lock safe, Stand there and stare At the whole concept of shutness, like a rat Whose maze has been rebaffled overnight, Stand still and quiver, unable to turn Around or go left or right. Or you can grasp it with a sly, soundless discretion, Open it inch by inch, testing each fraction Of torque on the spindles, on tiptoe Slip yourself through the upright slot And press the lock-stile silently Back into its frame. Or you can use your shoulder Or the hard heel of your shoe And a leg-thrust to break it open. Or you can approach the door as if accustomed To having all barriers open by themselves. You can wrench aside This unauthorized interruption of your progress And then leave it ajar For others to do with as they may see fit. Or you can stand at ease And give the impression you can see through This door or any door and have no need To take your physical self to the other side. Or you can turn the knob as if at last Nothing could please you more, your body language Filled with expectations of joy at where you're going, Holding yourself momentarily in the posture Of an awestruck pilgrim at the gate-though you know You'll only be stepping out against the scrim Or a wobbly flat daubed with a landscape, A scribble of leaves, a hint of flowers, The bare suggestion of a garden. David Wagoner |
(taken from the website poemhunter.com)
I've got a veritable maze of doors ahead of me.... I'm hoping to be the "awestruck pilgrim" at most of them!