When One Door Closes
- CLOSED DOORS
My husband spent forty years crawling through the bellies of ships and lugging chainsaws up ladders and stacking boulders on top of one another, so now he can’t move without a walker and a lot of pain. He spends most of his days in his power lift recliner, napping or watching TV shows about men doing things he can’t do. Sometimes, the shows feature men searching for something special or uncanny – like Aztec gold or Bigfoot – but often, the activities are more prosaic. Men rebuilding car engines. Men remodeling cabins. Men repairing watches. Men milking cows. Once, I found him watching a You Tube video about men fabricating a gutter and installing it on a garage. Sometimes, he tells me stories about these guys over dinner, as if they were his friends from work. He doesn’t watch those shows with me. We watch ‘Gardeners’ World’ or ‘Chef’s Table’ or You Tube videos of people walking through the Tate Modern. Our favorite show right now is ‘Somebody Somewhere,’ which follows a group of friends in small-town Kansas, as they experience shimmering moments of vulnerability and connection while eating French toast, taking singing lessons, and standing in corn fields. Sometimes, I talk about these Kansas friends at dinner, saying something like, I love how they build community wherever they are or it’s such a gift to watch grace unfolding. My husband says nothing. He stares at his plate, adding salt and smoked paprika to whatever I’ve put on it.
- TRAPDOORS
I’ve heard perfectionists – like me – often find trapdoors to escape from the pressure of constantly failing to meet our own expectations. Trapdoors lead to private spaces where we can rest. I have a trapdoor, and the space beneath it feels like a warm bath or a seat at the table in my grandmother’s gingerbread-scented kitchen. I’m always welcome there. It doesn’t matter if I’m dressed to the nines or wearing flannel pajamas and a sweat-stained hoodie. The trapdoor says come as you are. Beneath the trap door, my harsh thoughts soften like balls of wool; I knit them into self-talk that hugs me like a cashmere sweater. I love my trapdoor. I love my safe velvet box.
Does this seem extreme? Every castle has a secret room. So does every haunted house. Trapdoors are common on cargo ships and in magic acts, and are an essential feature of the gallows. Trapdoors are efficient. The Holy Roman Emperor, another enlightened despot, mandated their use in reusable coffins. Every day, I expertly navigate spreadsheets and sickness and endless spools of news delivering autocrats and children with limbs blown off. I like knowing there’s a quick exit if I need it. Sadly, climbing back out has gotten too hard. This year, I pulled an area rug over the trapdoor and pushed the couch on top of that. I know it’s still there, but I don’t use it anymore.
In other words, I stopped drinking.
- COSMIC DOORS
Now that my husband can’t drive, I’m responsible for the car – pumping gas, putting air in the tires, all the preventive maintenance. I dislike oil changes the most because I’m afraid of driving into the pit. This afternoon, Billy and Manuel greet me as I pull my Subaru into Valvoline. Manuel snaps on a long pair of black rubber gloves, while Billy yells, Show Time! Manuel guides me into Bay 1, indicating with stiff rubber-clad thumbs the proper way to angle my tires. His expression is bored; his gestures are desultory.
My husband tells me he is visited by angels in his dreams, eight-foot shadowy beings. He says their presence is reassuring; it envelops him in love. Maybe that’s why he sleeps so much. Some days, I can barely wake him for meals or to say goodbye when I leave for my day’s activities. Our cosmic relatives are showing him how to navigate non-linear time. They don’t need to multitask. They don’t care about grocery shopping or gym classes or oil changes. They don’t care about billing cycles or menopause or sell-by dates.
When I was younger, I dreamed about walking through fields of sunflowers. Now, in the liminal space of my parked car, waiting for Billy and Manuel to finish draining and replacing my fluids, I fill out my advance directive. Comfort, please. No heroic measures. Suspended over the pit, I think about hypothetical doors and choose which one I want to walk through.
