Umbilical

I find this hardware attached to a silky, blue ribbon in a basket near the cash register at a little vintage clothing shop along Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach called Girls on the Park.  I’m enthralled with the rustic beauty of this tiny, working padlock.  It feels heart-shaped to me, although most would have to look hard for this interpretation. I love its precision and delicacy, the idea that something so practical and mechanical can be so intricately miniaturized; that so much power can be so pretty. 

The key; however, isn’t nearly as exquisite as the mechanism it opens, it’s flat, constructed of flimsy metal that doesn’t match the impeccable detail of the lock.  And so when I decide this is a pendant, placing it on the chain I wear around my neck, the key is left behind, tossed in a drawer somewhere or maybe, I can’t remember now, just tossed.

The connotations around keys are a study in dichotomy.  Keys symbolize exclusion and inclusion, imprisonment and freedom, possession and release.  They’re about fear and trust, hesitation and certainty, vulnerability and safety, boundaries and what is boundless.

We all lock some part of ourselves away from the rest of the world, it’s inevitable.  There are few on this earth earning the right to be offered the key.  We hesitate, and rightly so, before putting it out there; we expect to celebrate its acceptance.

We use keys as a form of control; we use them not only to control who has access to what is precious to us, but ultimately who has access to us. We put up barriers around ourselves to gird against the hurt we fear will ensue when we let others see and come to know those flaws and imperfections within us.  We try to hide from others all the parts of us we find disappointing, what we strive to change but find most challenging to change. How will another accept us if we cannot accept ourselves?  We realize we’re works in progress yet can never quite reconcile opening ourselves up before we’re fully satisfied the masterpiece that is us is complete.

So when is the right time to put the key out there?  What do we need to think about to understand when we’re truly ready to relinquish it to or accept it from another?   The key isn’t meant to be given with restrictions around its use.  The key shouldn’t create convenience that replaces commitment.  The key should never limit the freedom of one in order to expand the freedom of the other. The key is about integration.  It symbolizes a willingness to open up to another everything that is inside whether we love it or loathe it. The key is about being available anytime, all the time. The key is the ultimate symbol of respect, confidence and trust.

What I find fascinating about the key is that we use it thinking we’re somehow creating safety by keeping others out, but the reality is in order to feel truly safe in this world, we need to use the key to let another in.  When we put the key in the lock we don’t want to walk into an empty house, what we really want is to find somebody home.

Bottega

For as long as I can remember, he’s always carved out a workshop of some kind, his own little slice of heaven amid our chaos on earth.  Adjacent to the utility sink in the basement where mom used to wash my long, blonde hair and brush the tangles out with “Tame” he claimed space for gadgets of all shapes and sizes.  Peg board covered the wall above his workbench guaranteeing every tool imaginable knew its rightful place.  As kids we mercilessly squeezed a myriad of objects within the clutches of his red vice.

He marked his territory in the garage as well, an old refrigerator housing all that’s necessary to repair the assortment of old jalopies he kept running for my siblings and I to drive.  At the time I couldn’t appreciate his métier, instead seething at the corner of Burlington and Route 53 on frigid winter mornings when prayers for a green light went unanswered, the engine of our 1975 Cutlass Supreme dying in the intersection. He siphoned gasoline with his mouth.

He has an affinity for the vintage; salvaging the metal cabinet from Grandma’s kitchen in the Rogers Park apartment, cigar boxes from a past era repurposed storing screws, bolts and nuts labeled accordingly in draftsman’s block lettering.  There’s even a pair of blue jean cut-offs tacked to the wall, back pockets exposed, pouches ready to take in stray implements.  Nothing goes to waste.

When it comes right down to it, his space is kindred to the art studio I now call home; inspiration strewn about the areas where we work in the form of the glimmering tools of our trades.   We gleam in involuntary delight when we happen upon that perfect something to add to the ever-growing collection.  We can never have enough.

I truly believe each one of us is an artist in our own right.  The finished work may represent us to the outside world, but the tools we invoke in the process honor the inner journey we’re on to create. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t call himself an artist, but I see the signs everywhere I look.  I hone my own craft in the shadow of his. This apple didn’t fall far from the tree.  

Upend

“Hello?  Hello?  Is this thing on?”  It’s her Twitter profile, and it’s so her.  It’s also me, a little over two years and two hundred blog posts ago, hesitating every time I hover over the “publish” button, wondering if I can handle how the universe may choose to react to my voice should it actually be heard.

It’s not easy, going back in time, to my once upon a time as a writer. I cringe at the roughness of my style, the prescriptive tone of my words.   But he’s asking to go through each Windlass post in chronological order, together, in an attempt for me to get my arms around the construct of the book it’s finally time to write, and for him to get his arms around me.

 

I think about what it means to be safe, to deliver the innocuous message, the one that won’t rock any boats, but certainly won’t rock any worlds either.  And I wonder, just for a second, which is better?  Do I censor, in an attempt to protect myself and my loved ones, watering down my emotions so as not to rile?  Or do I put my true feelings out there knowing that for every individual drinking in their resonance, there’s another who thirsts to scoff? 

I believe implicitly if you’re going to speak, you should speak up. Your message might be controversial; it might be misunderstood.  The person who hears it may not be capable of getting it, and may choose in her own ignorance or insecurity to dislike you because of it.  But it doesn’t mean you’re wrong, and it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say it.

In today’s world, it’s so easy for your microphone to be on.  What’s hard is finding the courage to say what needs to be said.