Shouldn't…but Do

Like walls, doors are an essential architectural feature. No getting in, or out, without doors. Walls contain and hold up, but doors let it all out.

Doors punctuate walls. Although walls can get built up, or tumble down, their premise is structure. More cheeky, doors are both structure and movement. What an expanse life would be without doors. People pacing up and down, unable to get through. Doors are fundamental, it’s good to know where they are.

Some of the best doors, though, are unseen in a landscape. Present, but not visible. Stumbled upon, they provide some of life’s greatest moments.

But some of those unseen, not-so-accidental, doors are the most frightening. No choice but to go through, hope for the happy ending, sometimes there, sometimes not.

Locked doors, lots of those in life – sometimes that’s good – they protect. But sometimes that squeeze stems from rusty hardware, broken, unhinged, unable to mediate any longer, cold and heat rush in, exposes things that shouldn’t be.

Doors themselves have personality, made of different things, designs, paint. Some doors swing, lots are hollow, the sturdiest are solid. Even two doors that look exactly the same are not, their use and outlook differ, experience matters with doors.

So too with doors, like real estate, location is everything. Front doors have a lot to say and see – most of the drama. Back doors live on the sly, admit and deny the real world. Side doors are in-between the headlines and the backpage, no show there. Side doors are for friends, or those making a discreet exit, good for emergencies too. Let you out where it’s safe, not too bright, not too dark.

Doors have their own space, their own Way. We call it a “doorway.” It is a place in-between folks, like me, prefer. Doorways are like the moon, sometimes open, in phases, partly closed, peeking. Time in the doorway is liminal, reflective – a threshold between here and there, always changing. Doors, like the moon, enable, inhibit, keeps things interesting.

No matter how humble, all doors have moxy. Without something breaking up the landscape now and then, symmetry becomes stifling. Doors are where the new stuff comes in, falls from the sky, creates an escape or a new paradigm. Doors don’t just offer an outlook, like a window, they let you make good on it.

Doors – we slam them, throw them open, answer and close them quietly. Always something coming and going, have to love doors, it’s where all the action is.