Locked Rooms

Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote, "You are so young. You stand before beginnings. I would like to beg of you, dear Friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign language."

I am standing before many many locked doors, at present. And yes, it is terrifying. My hands run along the handles, how many times? I think of rooms in my old house, my parents' house, the house I grew up in. I think of rooms I rarely entered. I think of the front hall with the oak chest, and the pictures my mother had setting up on top. The pictures of her mother who died before any of us could know her at all. I think of the pictures of the family that has since abandoned us, and the family that is still firm at our sides. I remember my mother's bookshelf to the side, and a dresser full of random odds and ends. I rarely entered the room, and so it seemed to me this magical place. There was an old hat rack in there with my grandfather's hats that sometimes we would try on. The room was full of antiquity, and yet, with all mysteries so near to our hearts, the real intrigue is how these old objects, these photos, and more importantly the records of these people, enhance and change and hold meaning in our lives.

The locked rooms, the rooms rarely entered, or not at all, might speak the most into our lives, might tell us the stories of our pasts, our presents, or futures. I run my finger along the doors I look at now: careers, future artistic projects, future friendships, a current spirit lifting crush, and I feel all this energy coursing. And at the same time, immense dread.

What will happen? Which doors do I open, and which doors can I? How long until someone comes to the other side and pops the lock, pulls the chain, removes the chair wedged firmly under the knob. And is there a way to speak to that someone, to change the course of things. And who holds the big wand. Who is at the controls?

I want, I want, so many things. I want mind crushing kisses. I want to lay deep into another human being and not feel like I'm wrong, not have to try and keep my eyes from darting for escape. I want to know what my hands will make. I want to know where I'll be so I can orchestrate the rest of it.

Rainer Maria Rilke goes on to write, "Do not now look for the answers. They could not be given to you, because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything...You need to live the questions. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer some distant day."

I'm glad there are doors at all. Questions. Big mysteries hanging around in our lives, waiting to surprise us. There are doors we HAVE to open. Only our touch will do the trick. There are choices WE must make, which no one can make for us, and steps only our feet can take if we are to move at all, move anywhere.

The doors say to me, Sweetheart, there is a story. There are rooms you have not seen, but will see. You are walking through new rooms already, and Wow, the windows cast so much light.

Here it is. Cheers. We're standing on so many threshholds, and one day we will pass into new spaces, and we will find at least a few of our answers there.