NO MO' KEYS

What does it mean to suddenly find oneself without a single key?

One week from tomorrow, I will know. My apartment loft keys will be turned in; my post box keys will be surrendered; (the truck keys were given up last week.)
I have to figure out if I want to save the old keychain, or, when I finally own another key, shop for a new one...but for one, entire day, (most of it spent in the air), I will be keyless.

I cannot remember when I have been without some sort of key in my life--diary locks needed special miniature keys (even though they could be picked with a bobby-pin--as any girl from the sixties will tell you); my roller skates were dependent on a skate key (one shared by members of the family--sometimes even passed around to neighborhood friends if someone lost their own--and recently, such a childhood buddy mailed me a "found" authentic skate key--bent and rusty-- clearly well loved...now residing in a packed jewellery box, headed "home"...) There were keys, too, to bike locks and backdoors, all hoarded like treasure, protected just as fiercely. Earning the right to carry "enough keys" that they could be used as self-defense objects, was a matter of Junior High pride.

Later on, there were other keys: lost keys to forgotten sea-chests, left in the attic, inciting my imagination, providing fuel for my first fiction. Once, a nun in the second grade had a trunk filled with musical instruments, for her class. She lost the key and the class hadn't had their music time for months. Someone told her the myth that, "Maybe Minns can pick the lock with her scout knife!" Never backing down from a dare, I spent an entire afternoon, belly to linoleum, with several nuns, a few friends and my self-worth, sprawled in the dust. Yes, I had a Girl Scout knife. Yes, it could turn the tumblers. But it would not release the final catch. (I think Mr. Smith, the custodian, finally just took a hammer and chisel to the trunk.)

Then came the keys to my heart--usually lost in emotional swampland; sometimes given away--never to be returned. There were the invisible keys--opening doors that would get me "ahead", as my parents pointed out (usually if I did what was required while looking a certain way and sounding like I came from a certain part of town--all of which I mastered--for a while, until the mastering of those locked doors was too much and I had to find a different entry). Car keys came, but were given back, when I left for college. Then, a whole new keychain filled with dorm room keys, art studio keys and postal box locks--even a few professors' doors, along the way...Always, keys needing to be accounted for, kept track of, used wisely, and finally turned in.

Coming to Los Angeles, suddenly there were the keys to Adulthood to deal with. Different laws necessitated new keys; office doors, desk drawers, my first car, a motorcyle, houses shared with roomies who were always "lending their keys" to unknown parties--which caused new keys to be made, new locks to be installed; keys to places gained through social connections or political connections or simply because I'd earned the trust of someone "in charge"...so many keys...most never lost, just replaced...exchanged...disgarded.

As I examine the keys in my life, I begin to look a bit deeper: keys to the Kingdom; spiritual keys; keys to Enlightenment; keys to success; keys to career; keys to longevity; keys to Mindfulness; keys to Understanding; keys to Peace.

Now my search is focused on keys to unlock the hearts and minds of those closest to me and to whom I return ...the kind there is no keychain for.