I have chosen a word that has had a lot of meaning in my life, in fact, it is the very first word I remember understanding when I learned to read. I remember the summer when I was four years old, sitting at the bottom of the stair case, between the entryway and the kitchen at the house on the hill, and sounding out D. O. O. R. I looked up and saw the door into the kitchen and it clicked. This word meant that object. Reading has been an integral part of my life ever since that moment.
Door has quite a bit of meaning in other ways. A door can be open or shut, locked against one or opened by one. It marks a state of being between one place and another, a barrier or a passageway.
I am thinking about what doors I want to have in my life this year, and which kind they will be.
I would like a sturdy door between me and some of the events that haunt my past. Having dealt with them, they can reside behind a safe barrier until I need to access the memory to help with a current problem.
I would like my new door in our new apartment to open wide to new friends.
I would like to change the form of the door between me and that huge well of imagination that waits for me to pull words from deep within and use them for creating new worlds. Right now it feels opaque and rigid, with rusty hinges. That needs to change if I want to accomplish a dream and write publishable fiction.
I need to determine which of the doors in my life are barriers placed by circumstance, and which I built and hung myself.
Being in a wheelchair really changes how you look at doorways, forever measuring whether or not you will be allowed through them, and once in, if there will be other inaccessible doors between you and such essential places as the bathroom or the check out counter.
For such a small word, only four letters, 'door' has a lot of legs to it. I look forward to seeing what I can do in 2015 with that as my word for the year.
(image is of the gate at Matthei Botanical Gardens, designed by David Torgoff)
2 comments:
Good luck to you with your many doors this year!especially the one about swinging open to new friends, as they can hElp make so many other things easier to bear! Happy New Year!
What an interesting concept. I had never thought of having a word for the year. And I am so fascinated that you chose that word. It definitely would not be the first word that would come to my mind. It just shows how different and unique we all are and I really love that about the internet. Great job again.
Giovanni @ Coastal Contract Hardware
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