I’ve been back in Seattle for over a month. In that time the winter winds have blown, snow has fallen, and the days have gotten longer. I continue to have the odd feeling that I was never away, that nothing has changed, or that everything has changed and I recognize that nothing is familiar at all. It is very confusing.
When I was traveling, the only key I had was to my car. It was easy to keep track of. I didn’t lose it; I never locked the keys in the car. On nights that I stayed in a motel I would have a key card most often. It seems that motels have given up on keys – I suppose too many get lost or taken with the folks who spend the night.
For over six months I was living a simple one key life. Then I went to Hawaii and there I had to care for the keys to my friend’s house and keys to a car. Still it was simple and I kept track of the tools to be safe in a house and get around.
When I returned to Seattle, keys came back into my life and within a few days I had my own cars keys back as well as the keys to my house (though I still wasn’t living there since my tenants were still there), keys to my friend’s apartment where I was staying, keys to my mail box and keys to my ex husband’s house who was caring for my dog. A lot of keys----and I lost them.
I went to walk my dog and somehow lost all the keys except the one to the house where the dog was. I knew I had driven to the house so my car keys had to be somewhere in my ex-husband’s house I thought but no matter how much I searched I could not find them. I went over and over and over the house and still no keys. Finally I realized that he had an extra set of keys to one of his cars and I had an extra set of car keys back at my friend’s house. I got my extra keys, got new keys made for my friend’s apartment (I had to go to her work to get her keys to have them made) I had to go to my tenants to get their mailbox key to have another made only to have those keys made wrong not once but twice!!!
What a mess. I keep thinking that I had to have my keys somewhere but I just couldn’t figure out where. I walked the neighborhood with the dog thinking perhaps I had dropped them. Nothing. Finally I surrendered. I had lost my keys. I had made replacements and even though some love tokens that were on the key ring where gone I would be ok. I had new keys. It wasn’t the same but it was ok.
Two weeks later while tossing a small backpack into the car as I was going somewhere, my keys fell out of the pack. There was an extra pocket on the back of the pack that somehow I never checked. I had looked through the pack dozens of times to search for the keys, I had shaken the pack trying to listen for the keys but I didn’t find them – then.
I started to laugh. My keys, the key to my life back in Seattle had been with me all along. What I thought would gain or lose by going on my adventure was with me all along. So often I look outside myself to find meaning or encouragement or support when I really have it within myself. For over two weeks I had carried my own keys with me and had never known it. Perhaps that is true of my faith and hope and happiness as well.
