Daily magic
Before going out, I put on a coat as a protective layer for the cold. I also put on a neutral face expression and a protective mood. When going out, I am activating these layers and transforming from inside-me to outside-me. My eyes meet the eyes of people I don’t know, shorter than the meeting with familiar eyes would be. I try to predict the walking route of the others, their speed and behaviour, and adjust my own route. My mouth is in a friendly beginning-of-a-smile-setting. I’m aware of my smallness, blending in with the crowd like a drop in a river. Although in a certain way I can also feel huge outside; by the realization that there is an almost infinite amount of space around me, while my space at home is bordered by walls.
Inside the house, I know exactly how it feels to plunk onto the couch, I am used to the dimensions of the table and the squeaking sounds of the old floor. I am prepared to regularly meet my husband and children. Sometimes one of them just passes by and says ‘Hi’, sometimes we laugh or exchange some sentences or just taste each other’s moods. Especially the teenager’s moods can be wonky, on one day they can change mood quicker than they can change clothes (they change clothes a lot). Their bedrooms are not a place you enter without knocking. So, I knock, and wait. Sometimes I hear ‘whats up?’ That means I have to explain what I am doing there and cannot come in. And when allowed inside because of a short ‘Yeah’, it happens again: I am transforming. This time, I’m morphing into the relaxed mother who is ready for every storm, and intends to pay attention to their joys, boredoms and displeasings. My husband tells me I spoil them too much.
It took me some time before I realised at which exact moment these transformations take place. But then I noticed the ‘forgetting what I was going to do’. Sometimes, when going to another room inside the house, my mind is mildly disrupted. Why did I go from one space to another? What was I planning to do in the kitchen again? The only thing that helps to remember is going back through the door. It is the door that holds the power.
Let’s try this out by entering the door of the livingroom of my neighbour, a livingroom filled with people who came to celebrate his birthday (how unthinkable that is now..) Going to my neighbours birthday I would put on a happy face and choose cheerful but decent clothes, because my neighbour is 85 and both he and his house are very oldfashioned. I know my neighbour likes me very much. Even when I don’t dress up, his door will feel like a magic gate that changes me into a princess.
Time to go home and head for my bedroom door. I step in and enter another sphere. This space will probably make me muse about the past day; what did I do? Am I satisfied with this day? What will tomorrow be like? My clothes and facial expression are less important. It is also a place of freedom: all that needed to be done on this day is ready, or at least I decided that it’s ready enough. I can decide if I want to read something or just lie in my bed and relax. This room is only used by me and my husband, it is an intimate place that immediately feels that way when I go through the door.
The beautiful, the dull, the unpleasant, the usual, the unexpected is hidden in every door. When you go through, it leaps upon you and reveals another version of you. Are you ready?