excerpt from keys

1.  lost and found

every key is a relationship:

there is you. there is that that you lock or lock away. there is the lock. and there is the key that opens and closes the lock.

you may have with the key a closer relationship than you have with that that is locked or locked away:

you may spend more time with the key (you may spend more time looking for the key) than you spend with that that is locked or locked away; you may spend more time thinking about the key (where did I put the key/where do I put the key?) than thinking about that that is locked or locked away; you may touch the key more than you touch that that is locked or locked away…

and yet, it is that locked or locked away thing that is considered important, precious…

and the key as trivial.

all across america, there are corners of kitchen drawers, shallow dishes, cigar boxes, canning jars filled with keys whose locks are forgotten…

whose locked or locked away things are gone, forgotten.

each key had a relationship: a person, a lock, a precious thing…

an aura of importance clings to these keys ~not for the keys themselves, but for the idea of the forgotten thing, once precious, once locked away…

we do not dispose of these keys though they are useless ~no lock, no thing to lock or lock away… they are like memories we cannot remember but refuse to forget.

when you find an unrecognized key, ask yourself: what precious part of life, of self, is gone, forgotten?

try to remember:

when did you first borrow keys to a car?

when did you first give someone keys to your home?

what does it really mean:

the key to my heart?