Locked Out

When we locked up the house at night,
We always locked the flowers outside
And cut them off from window light...
The flowers were out there with the thieves.
--Robert Frost

Friday night I practically kicked down my own front door trying to get my downstairs neighbors to hear me and let me in. It seems my keys fell out of my pocket at work, unbeknownst to me until I arrived home, upon which I proceeded to pound and then kick the door, trying to make enough racket to be heard.

I've rarely felt so pathetic. There's something about making an extraordinary effort to be let into one's own residence that makes one feel like a beggar-- as though the primary comfort and security of hearth and home were suspect of being as capable of cupidity and caprice as a lover of the inconstant sort...

This doesn't surprise me. I feel so separated from love, God, other people, my own emotions, my family-- life itself, really-- that the door churlishly deciding (I'm convinced!) to play its part in the latest miserable tableau on the stage of my life is far from shocking.

When paradise within is a locked gate, surely one's own terrestrial front door following suit is only natural. I suppose I shall awaken tomorrow to find my bed has collapsed. "No rest for the wicked" and all that...

Eventually I was let in by Senora Maria, the squat, redheaded mother of my close friend who owns the house and rents it to both of us. Her shrill voice generally annoys me greatly, as does the way she inevitably refers my very-occasional queries as a matter of course to my friend, never mentioned by name, but called simply and with weirdly smirking pride,"My son" (She's from Peru, and still definitely subscribes to its patriarchal belief system) but I still felt quite badly about scaring her by kicking so hard at the door that she had fear in her eyes when she opened it.

After all, the prospect of forced entry is enough to give one a heart attack--
ESPECIALLY in this scary part of the hood at night. Ah, Bushwick.