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.