My Ode to the Door

It can be a challenge walking through a door; or up to one – even making one’s self presentable enough to walk out your door.  Have you ever just stopped and stared at a door?

We all know doors open doors; as in one door closes and another opens.  Or like a door that opens to a great opportunity.  But open the wrong door and you might end up regretting it.  Rock music history owes much to the “Doors.”

Doors can cause our mind to create a picture of what’s on the other side: a red door, a castle door, a glass door, oddly shaped doors; even patio doors have a story to tell, though you might be able to see through them.

Many times emptiness, sadness, fear, and loneliness grip us behind closed doors.

I like the idea that lots of love and happiness is hidden by doors. Beautiful doors make me smile. Believe it or not, surprises offered by that famous Prize Show doors gets my juices flowing.  I imagine I’m there on stage, sweat beading on my brow, heart pounding; legs pulsating, arms flailing, the audience’s screams roaring in my head: “pick door number one, door number one!”  But the door to your heart convinces you to pick door number three.  Turns out door number two was really the door for you.

Sometime, the door you want remains closed to you. Like the door to a love’s heart. You just don’t have the key to unlock it.

I appreciate a “good” door. As a child, the more doors in a room led to more adventures; “hide ‘n seek” places, listening on the other side of the door places – even doors that led to safe places.  My love of science fiction fueled my hope for a space – time continuum door that opened in orbit around Cigna Beta 9. Maybe that’s why I loved that scene in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” when the toddler tells the aliens to “…come in through the door.”  Priceless.  Just for the record, I am still upset that every morning I can’t open the door to my flying car.

Doors: you can’t live without them.  Now more than ever.  However, I’ll bet our long, long ago ancestors, before they figured out that fire could be a door, might give me some grief on that point.

If I were a photographer, I would travel the world documenting doors.  I can see a “World of Doors” exhibit.  On opening night, floor-to-ceiling double-wide doors of heavy oak carved with incredible beautiful designs would be gently swung open to a warm summer breeze; where a crowd would be waiting to experience the beauty of doors from the four-corners of the earth.  Through those doors would flow people who would love the sanctity of the door, its simplicity and complexity – its glorious history.

In the end, though, I cast my vote for opening the “doors of our minds.”  Through those doors lies the promise of mankind.

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I think I should tell you that a picture/photograph of a cottage (or maybe a full-blown house) with a red door is how this piece came to be.  My original thought was to create a RPT Challenge; asking folk to choose a door of their liking, and between 150 – 500 words tell the story behind their door. Naturally, they would have to post a pic of their chosen door. But then I came to my senses: how could a “nobody and newbie” have the audacity to offer up such a challenge. But after having jotted down some notes, my brain took over and “My Ode to the Door” is the result. However, I did not embed any photos of doors because I was hoping this piece would garner a few comments with pictures of some great doors.

The other part of this “inner workings of an idea” is that the fine works of the blogs, “A Storyteller’s Abode,” ( her post on 5 fountain pens is a 1st rate gem) and “My Grandfather was an Undertaker” fueled the concept from the get-go.  Both are award-winners for creating wonderful stories in challenges limited to 100-250 words from a picture prompt. Word prompts, too, I might add.

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