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While I was in San Fran, I met up with a friend from grad school, who took me to a little bar in the city.. a 'Speakeasy' as they call it. We came up to a non-descript looking door and he rang the bell. The password to get in was 'books', which I thought was quite appropriate to the situation, seeing as I'm a rare book dealer and we were there for an International Antiquarian Book Fair. We entered the bar and it was lovely inside, with great tin ceilings, interesting architecture, and walls of books that opened up to secret doors. There was even another room called the 'library' (and required an additional password), which you entered to through one of these secret doors and it held another bar area, lined with book shelves.
After we left, I started thinking about doors. Its interesting how we often judge a building by it's door, just like we often judge a book by its cover or a person by their outward appearance... even though we often shouldn't. Without my friend's knowledge about this door, I would have passed it by and thought nothing of it. But inside, was a great treasure.
Sometimes I look around at people and wonder what is really going on inside. We can never really know, can we? They may look like they have it all together and everything is perfect on the outside, but you never know their history, personal struggles, fears, desires, hopes, or dreams. Sometimes you can think you know someone so well... better than anyone else in the world - and yet even still there are so many mysteries. Do we even know ourselves? I've lived with myself for 31 years and I've been a person of intense introspection and reflection... and yet I'm just beginning to understand some of the depths of who I am. Sometimes it seems like with every door you open, there is always another secret door waiting to be opened.
We're such curious creatures too. I don't know... maybe its just me, but I've always had a fascination with doors. Every country I travel to, I always love taking pictures of doors. And I know I'm not the only one because there are many people who do the same thing. There is something so mysterious about a door. What's on the other side? Its something hidden. It may be something ordinary or it may be something fascinating.. but you will never know unless you open it. Sometimes you need a key.. sometimes you don't. Sometimes you need a secret password. Sometimes, like Alice in Wonderland, you need to expand or shrink in order just to fit through the door you want to go through. Sometimes you have a choice of many doors to go through and its so hard to choose. Sometimes you wonder if you went through the right door at all and wish you could backtrack to find a better one.
The thing about doors is that there are millions of them and you just can't go through them all. You can appreciate them from the outside and wonder what is inside, but you can only choose a few doors in life to go through that are right for you. And just maybe, along the way, you'll find a friend who might introduce you to some that you never expected.
Here are a few photos of some lovely doors that I would love to walk through:
To see more beautiful doors, visit A Whole Lotta Doors.
The Open Door
by Sandi Lyn Schraut
Within this dream
That lies so soft
Upon this rebel heart
A beam of light
So warm and bright
Has parted darkest
Curtains sight
Awake and rise
Go meet the sun
And risk the burn today
For no one knows
Tomorrows tricks
Or even this days ways
Oh joy that once kept
Safe and snug
Has withered with the years
So dream oh sleeper
Rise high and fly
In golden shafts of life
let wrinkles not
This day have sway
Bring love its merits
To the fore
Rescind the values
Of the ages
And fly, oh spirit fly
No bars, no fences
Hold you fast
Except within your mind
At last, oh freedoms
Bounty search
At last the open door
A Whole Lotta Love,
Adrienne
