La puerta rosada, 1927
From my window, I witnessed a mystery.
I don’t pay much attention to who comes and goes around me, but that day it seemed to me that the person who walked through the door that night, even though the individual was wearing the same outfit, an impossible-to-miss orange coat, was different to the person that left in the morning.
There was something in his walk, in his posture, in the way this tenant inserted the key.
Yes, definitely someone else.
I did not give much importance to the matter, but the days that followed, when I heard the door, I peeked out, and to my surprise, every day it was one person leaving and a very different one, the one who returned.
Sometimes this person changed coats, perhaps to confuse me, but it appeared to be a new tenant, every morning, and every night.
The mystery was not very difficult to solve. Elementary!, as that famous detective would say.
The person who walks out the door and returns as someone else every day is me, of course. But this new awareness made me reflect on the doors of my life.
The white door that saw me grow.
Wide doors, full of dreams.
The noisy and jammed doors of difficulties.
One night I crossed a gloomy threshold: the stealthy door of illness.
Then life rewarded me and put before me a luminous door, that of love.
And this kind of rectangular biography reminds me of a wonderful verse from my bedside poet that I’m going to leave for the end.
For now, I’m going to, carefully watch that person walking out the door. How she grows and transforms with each breath, with each poem that penetrates her soul like an incandescent arrow, with each kind gesture given or received, with each loss, with each tear, with each piece of good news, with each extravagance.
Once the mystery was solved, I decided that every time I cross the threshold of the door of a new day, I will do it with a melody on my lips, a greeting to that other me that awaits me and a farewell, just in case…
How beautiful is life!
How it strips us every day,
how it ruins us relentlessly,
how it enriches us without ceasing!
Jaime Sabines
Today she shares her “impulsive meditations” from Calgary, Canada, where she lives.
leonorcanada@gmail.com