THE TRUTH ABOUT DOORS
When I was a girl, we sat around the table and we ate our food, much in silence. We were like doors, tightly shut. We craved the invitation to open up, but we were taught to revere a certain guardedness more. And so the love we shared, as deep as worn grooves in rich maple, went unspoken. We were imperfect like old doors. Doors made to open. But afraid.
We gathered for supper and that should have been enough. But we hungered for the kind of feast that invites others in to the secret places of the heart. We knew one another better than anyone, but we held our words of disappointment and wonder, like the juiciest bits with not enough to go around. We were closed doors. Our quiet dignity on full display.
My daddy designed and manufactured doors for a living. The irony is not lost.
An entrepreneur with an eagerness to create something extraordinary, he rose early and came home just in time for every evening meal. I could see the way worry chiseled lines and jagged places into his face. The face I loved. The face my fingers longed to touch. The door I ached to open.
In so many ways I am my daddy’s daughter. My long legs are his. My love for words is his. My work ethic is his. But I am not a closed door. A stoic door, My heart is open and eager for the encounter. Like the painterly, decaying doors I adore, my blemishes are on full display. I am proud of my blemishes because they are mine. Old soul. Old door.
I am not drawn in by what is shiny—shiny teeth, shiny hair, shiny life. Shiny is an illusion, the re-tractor from what is hidden. And we all have things we hide. Imperfect things. Difficult things. Behind our doors.
Old Door, it is your scuffs and flaws that draw me near. You have seen things. Let things in. And you are marked from the encounter.
I tug on your handle [I touch the lines of his eyes]. I see beyond what you guard.
I smell the garden just behind, where something worthy is taking root.
A simple tug, a patient insistence, and the door flies open.
Old doors. I am drawn to the imperfection that is kindred to those I may never meet, yet we find one another there.
We are all old doors. Signs of age, years of story and if we’re lucky, evidence of a loving touch.