I love the sound of coffee percolating like a soft snore when morning’s darkness is heavy against my mouth. The silence of early morning teaches best. Fulfills wisdom and brings opus to the forefront. When my head is free from ringing voices and people.
People claim to have answers, but they haven’t walked through any doors. Red doors or clear doors. Broken doors or locked doors. Doors that shout DO NOT ENTER. Jail cell doors or prison doors. Airplane doors or arrival doors or Humvee doors. Doors to refugee camps and divorce, final goodbyes and mourning. How can you have answers without doors?
Doors announce two things. One. There is more to be discovered. Two. There is possibility. Sometimes I sit outside doors just to enjoy their presence. The fullness of the moment. When I find a door it’s good courtesy to give it proper appreciation. I sit and watch and wait.
In waiting, sometimes, a person passes through from the other side, and even after all this time it’s still a surprise. They rarely notice me sitting, being too preoccupied with the new door and new experience. They’re lost in awareness thinning distraction.
When this happens I remind myself they’re excited to find, not to leave, so I shouldn’t conflate their eagerness to depart that side for an opinion about its quality. They simply got used to it. We’re naturally voracious for things we don’t know. Beautiful human curiosity feeding innovation, exploration, and achievement.
We leverage sayings like the grass is greener. But idioms are dangerous because they halt further examination. The grass is greener because it’s human for the grass to be greener. So I say have a look for yourself. Taste. This is humanness. Dynamic quality allows us to know inherent value and still tire of it. But. It is good to remember doors are funny things. Often harder to open when you want to go back through them.
The more I walk through doors the more I approach them with deference. I take the process of consideration with gravity. There’s an exchange to life. Opportunity cost and trade-off. I try to remember that strength is made of patience and there’s no rush to get over there. It might be similar to right here. I learn that true patterns are belied by appearances. The same thing draped in new clothing.
But for all this talk of doors, locks intrigue me most. Even with opportunity behind doors I still let visible locks deter me from trying knobs, forgetting that locks are for protecting valuable things. The doors with locks are the doors I should be trying.
Fresh snowfall on the ground. The morning lights just clicked on. My loyal dog carries her bone wherever I go. I pour another cup of coffee and it’s smooth.
The glass is cold on my cheek. My face is smushed against the car window. Text drips out my ears. Her words. Put in my left ear, absorbed by the brain, dripped out the right. Waxen words spattered on the window and —
— another door. Car door. Where she put my face into glass. But there were earlier doors. Doors she opened. Doors with failed locks because not all doors are for opening. Some are for keeping out. Some are for monsters in bedtime stories. Some children don’t need stories to experience fear.
I spent so much time staring at doors, wishing they weren’t there. Wishing some were locked while others were unlocked. Imagining walls were doors. Wishing I could step into my closet and vanish.
It was a time in my life when every door opened to the same place. Beatings shaped like open arms. Curses vowelized in the shape of love yous.
Into work now. I should be negotiating emails but it’s Friday and there is snow on the ground and people are ready to be scattered salt on the walkways. We are here only to go home.
I light a candle that speaks a gentle rhythm. It’s a reminder of sorts. About hope. And doors. Doors that need re-framing. Sometimes I need a hammer. Sometimes an ax. Every once in a while. Courage.
I look at her blurry face and crawlspace eyes. Doors do not always feel like possibility. I remember now why I sit and wait. Why I’m patient. These doors feel like hesitation. Question marks and clipped wings. They feel like I might be better off here instead of there. They smell like acceptance and gratitude.
Her lips turn into a scowl. Angry curls and cobweb wrinkles around her mouth. The car door keeps me trapped. Keeps me small. Not growing and not exploring and not discovering. Her hand presses my head. My cheek smushes against cold glass. I wait.
Roman Newell is hard at work on his debut novel — 20XX — a work in magical realism, which explores the complexities and conflicts in modern day societies amid confusing social norms, rapidly evolving technology, and impact traumas. Follow Roman’s Substack to be added to the 20XX contact list.
your words put me in mind of a loud cymbal or a bell maybe. resounding over and over. i am left with ringing ears in the best way possible
“Every once in a while. Courage.” Put a lump in my throat.
A friend of mine gave me two large globe red wine glasses for Christmas once. The lady who was demonstrating them was playing sounds with various levels of liquid in the crystal, and it made him think of me. He also complimented my hair at his Christmas party, so on the way home, my ex-boyfriend broke the glasses and jammed a piece into my arm. Then he held the stem with a jagged piece of globe at my throat, and I pressed myself against the window of his truck. It was raining and cold and I remember thinking I was going to die with a cold cheek and nose.
Your last paragraph had me wanting to hurt someone for little Roman. All the doors that have to be removed from the hinges to confront the ugliness kept in those rooms so that we can care for the versions of us that used to be trapped behind them… the courage it requires and the strength we must summon. To integrate all of it into the people we are striving to be. We are all marvels. Miracles.
As always, Roman. Gorgeous, moving work.