It All Begins With An Open Door

Meow Wolf (Santa Fe, NM) beautifully
highlights the subversive potential of doors.
Don't just stand there with the fridge door
open--you're letting the interdimensional
creatures out! (Also, Bruce and Eleanor.)

It all begins with an open door.



The primal part of us, the part that huddled around the fire, the part that jumps at small noises in the dark, hates an open door. An open door lets the mosquitoes in, lets the air conditioning out. Unlocked, it invites thieves or monsters. Propped open, it declares to the world you have nothing worth stealing.

Doors enable us to control access to our homes and our lives. Mother and I have wished for a solid front door with a peephole instead of our beautiful lead glass door so that we can identify the extremely persistent Jehovah's Witnesses and pretend not to be home. A door is a point of vulnerability, the gate where our castle can be stormed.

What the door really does, though, is allow us to decline to participate in the unpredictable, wide, wild world, to create a defined space that resists change not of our own making. It's a reactionary thing to shut the door.

To be fair, opening the front door can lead to trolls, dragons, war, orcs, and Mordor.
So it's not like Bilbo Baggins is being totally irrational here. 

Part of the hero's journey--often literally--involves passing through a doorway. The hero can't begin her quest without opening a door or two, surrendering the twin illusions of comfort and control for an adventure whose hidden end could be glory or failure or anything in between.

So, when I was getting ready for bed, I thought, in that sort of drowsy non sequitur you get sometimes around ten o'clock on a Wednesday, "It all begins with an open door."

From the Animal Wisdom deck by
Dawn Brunke.

It occurs to me that I've been standing at that open door for a while now. Not unlike Bob Cat, I find that the wide, wild world can be a little intimidating. The Universe, in its inimitable way, has been sending me some signs that it may be time to leave the safety of the doorway and take a few risks.

Just as a for instance, I've drawn the Crab (four of shells/cups) at least seven times in the last 8 months. It's become a bit of a theme, as the cards will do when you ignore them. The lesson of the crab is, of course, that in order to grow, we (okay, I) need to be vulnerable, to step outside of where I am comfortable. To take my hand off the doorknob and walk through the doorway.

My instinctual response to that invitation can be summarized as, "Don't wanna, not gonna, you can't make me!" (Augmented by profanity and chocolate.)

And the Universe has kept right on providing Exciting Growth Opportunities. Because, of course it has.

I start a new interim position Monday. I am extremely careful to refer to it loudly and frequently as INTERIM, to ensure that everybody knows I have absolutely, positively committed to not committing to deciding whether I want to walk through that particular door or not. This is exactly how Bob Cat approaches the front yard: he makes it to the edge of the front porch, looks around a bit, and then scurries back inside...then repeats the process on pretty much a daily basis.

I also have a novel coming out later this spring. That doorway is particularly terrifying--it is much easier to take myself seriously as a mid-level government manager than as a novelist. I keep waiting for someone to take me aside and go, "No, seriously, Diana, this book sucks--we've just not wanted to hurt your feelings." But that hasn't happened, so eventually (i.e., late May, early June), I may have to confront the fact that I've written a book that doesn't actively suck and walk through that door as well.

Other doors loom further on the horizon: sending Eleanor to New York for Spring Break was a reminder that in just three years, she will be opening the door of her childhood and walking out, leaving me on the doorstep, most likely bawling in a completely mortifying manner.

So, maybe, just maybe, it might be time to accept the changes I cannot change, get comfortable with openness, accept the adventure.

Canyon de Chelley, AZ
No doors here...what a beautiful and terrible freedom.

It all begins with an open door.