A doorframe is one of the most stable structures of a home.
I know this because I live in California. So if the ground wobbles and the firm walls become woozy, I’m told to hide myself under the slim arch of a doorframe.
This summer I’ve been standing under a one, untouchable. The routine of home is inapplicable, so I spend my time in reflection instead.
But I’m not standing here because my home is shaking, but because it’s fading.
For instance yesterday I watched the orange sun slip under the hills. The light was as thick as honey and it squeezed past the body of the trees, onto the road, and into my eyes.
I’ve captured it now in those words, but at the time there was something distressing about all that beauty. The only thought in my head was “these are my trees.” and then a quieter voice, “these are my trees, and I’m leaving.” It was the strongest light and it too was fading.
On the other side of the door is my journey, but only its bony frame of four months. Although the tail end appears to be a whole six months more, and past that their must be the entire frame of time. Infinite vertebrae. I’ve cloaked this structure in expectations. Not because I want to, but because if I don’t the time seems vast, and steep, and unassailable.
There are very few moments when you get to stand under a frame like this one, and even if you have, the time is easily forgotten. It’s a time pre-something and post-another, so the memories are usually tainted by the moments on either side.
My flight to Boston is on Thursday. I’m reluctant to leave this post, and its unexpected stability. I’m inching towards the edge of the doorframe, and the sight of the other side makes me panic. I look over my shoulder. If I went homeward the transparency would harden. My little town would become concrete as it was. I would once again deal with labor and dread and routine.
But that’s not really an option.
So Thursday I leave this little arch in time, and I head out onto the shaky earth.
