Is this a door I should open and walk through or is this a door to fleetingly admire and pass by? I must admit it doesn’t look like a door that is used very often. Long ago locked, jammed in its frame, remaining as a reference to the past. The past use of the building as a convent or monastery. Fifty metres back was the main arched entrance to the cloisters that have been restored, a library established, and artists or craft workshops established, those who no longer look for a religious dimension to their lives. So what is this door for? Who might use it? If one was to wait and watch would one see the ancient monk or nun who silently emerges for a late passaggiata in the moonlight, scurries on weightless feet and returns later some mission of mercy accomplished.
A door for memories? It is the memories that come and go. Look at the gaping letter box; memories would need nothing bigger.
Surely not a door for me to go through. I imagine a weed filled passage leading to a part of the monastery that has been cut off, nobody could think of what to use it for: too difficult, too awkward. Like the parts of the past that no one knows what to do with. Best forgotten. Put it (whatever it is) in a museum, an old fashioned museum with dusty glass cases which nobody looks at. “I can’t see what it is, can you?”
But I may be able to turn the door into a door I can use. I could oil the hinges so it opens easily and silently. And maybe I can find the big key (somebody must have it!) and go through and find a further stage in life’s adventure. The unraveling and restoring of what I am.
