I 
am currently reading a novel entitled, The Ten Thousand Doors of January. It is one type of novel that I enjoy, while always being secretly a bit concerned that it isn’t literary or serious enough for me. I suppose one might call it fantasy (I can feel the rolling eyes as I write this) though I might classify it as metaphorical or even allegorical fiction. Yes, events happen that do not happen in my world, but these happenings are all pointing to truths and themes that are central to the heart, and nothing essential in the story is in any way foreign, or fantastic.
The novel is structured as a book within a book, and protagonists of each story search for doors which serve as gateways to other realities. The two protagonists, both women, escape more mundane worlds for a search for something better. The basic metaphor of character leaving the safety of mediocrity or persecution to search for a greater world is essentially the hero’s journey, but the intricacies of each character bring different colors and individual significance and meaning to the parallel stories. It’s not great literature, but I am enjoying the experience of reading each page and the doorways my mind enters as the plot proceeds.
Is there a better metaphor in literature and in life than the doorway? A barrier between spaces is transversed, but only by leaving one reality behind and entering a new one, constant loss and gain. Some doorways require effort (or a key)while others are passed though without even a notice Some doorways are passed in entrance, and others in leaving, and some doorways are impassible, for a while, or for forever.
Think about all the doorways you have passed through today (many more than once). I just did a rough count and I know I went through more than 15 doorways (and one gate) between the time I woke up this morning and the time I left the house less than an hour later. I must admit that I had to just recreate my movements in my mind because I had no actual sense of doing this. Yet each movement had meaning, and the many goings and comings brought me to where I am right now, in a plane flying from San Francisco to Albuquerque.
Now, I recognize that I have reached the age where more often than I’d like, I go through a door only to realize that I don’t know why I’m there or whether I was going or coming. But even these involuntary transports have the affect of bringing me into a different place…confused, but in a different place.
There are a couple of doors I remember noticing as I went through and feeling their import. I remember most of the first times I entered the places where I lived and how the potential of being there suddenly became the actual. I remember entering the door of the old diocesan center on my first day as superintendent (I also remember leaving through the glass doors of the new diocesan center on my last). I remember the click of the key in the lock on the red door of my parent’s house as I left it for the last time a few weeks ago. But most passages go without awareness.
Leaving behind and moving ahead, doorways are a gift. Whether they are crossed in joy, anticipation, fear, sorrow, or apathy, doorways are a daily metaphor for every moment of our lives. Let’s take a day to be conscious of doorways. When going through a door think just for a second, “What am I leaving?” or “What and I going toward?” This little exercise may help me (and maybe you) to notice the lives we are living just a tiny bit more.
…and no, I have never found (or looked for) a secret door to a strange world…though I will be exit this plane into Albuquerque, does that count?
Note: The door pictured is from St Joseph Mission School in San Fidel, NM