the key to my heart

Here I am at the coffee shop again, trying to snag a few moments for myself. To remember what it means to be “just me.” I’m reminded of a game I used to play: what’s on your keychain? It’s always a good way to get to know someone—you ask them what’s on their key chain and they explain the items on it to you. You find out about their home, their relationships, their job. Sometimes their families or an old tidbit of sentimentality that opens them up to you a little bit more.

I have had so many different key chains in different seasons of my life. For my 17th birthday my father gave me a Louis Vuitton key holder. This key chain was lost, ironically, on the night of my first wedding. It is a perfect metaphor for “cleaving from one’s family,” I went from being the daughter of a wealthy family to a (too) young bride in an unhappy marriage, replete with a fiscally controlling husband who used money to “allow” me to do absolutely nothing that wasn’t expressly sanctioned by him.

The key chains that must have populated my life between my first marriage and leaving it and then leaving my next relationship as well are as far from my memory as that indistinct time in my life. It was a time when I did a lot of growing up and a lot of learning about myself, but I was in constant flux. Even at the time, I knew I didn’t know myself—wasn’t on the right path. These three years sit discarded like something that I outgrew. Like the brittle, peeling snakeskin one might find in a deserted canyon. Whatever keys I had at the time have relegated themselves to the lost past.

The next keychain I remember was the one I bought at the Grand Canyon as I drove across the country to San Francisco with only the few things I could fit in my Civic coupe. I had been praying for guidance in the months leading up to my move from New England—the break up with my boyfriend, the decision of where to move, the fear of being, for the first time, completely on my own. I had prayed for the wisdom to know God’s will, the courage to act on it and the strength to follow through. And I had heard Him, pushing me on to California where I didn’t want to be. Towards the decision that was illogical. Leave my job that I love? Where I was just promoted? Leave my huge, inexpensive flat? All of my stuff? The boy I didn’t really want to let go of? To move in with my sister and her family in their tiny San Francisco apartment and share a bed with my 2 yr old niece? But feeling that I should, even though it was the least favorite of all my options, made me feel that it must be something external—such as God’s will—that sent me on my cross-country drive. So I farmed my stuff out into three different apartments, scattered across two states, and packed what I could carry into my little car. I picked up my mom in Atlanta and we headed out to San Francisco where I hadn’t been since I was 9.

At a souvenir shop at the Grand Canyon I found a key chain that had a black leather thong holding a small pewter cylinder with the impression of a stylized bear’s footprint. On the back it said “strength.” And this is exactly where I was with my prayer. I had heard: (ok, ok—San Francisco). I had acted with courage (what—now?!? Ok, ok, I’ll quit my job and move all the way across the country where I don’t know anyone but my sister). And now I was relying on strength to see it through. But this keychain meant even more to me than that. Because at the time I had only my loose car key. No house key. Nothing at all that said where home was. And so, with only strength, I crossed the bay bridge and found my home.

I glued and re-glued the keychain for years as it fell apart through constant use. But eventually it was irreparably broken. Over my years in SF the key ring held keys to my sister’s apartment, and then keys to my own. Keys to the café where I worked the early shift. Then, later on, keys to the bar where I bartended and cocktailed. Later, as I went farther up in the same company, I had a key to the register, a key to the safe, a key to the office. Keys to all the doors of the establishments. A key to Gordon’s apartment that I shared with him. Later, I gave the keys to the restaurants back and had, instead, keys to my office at San Francisco State University where I was teaching Humanities 225, and a key to the main Humanities office and a key to the graduate study room.

On our honeymoon I bought a keychain to replace the bear print in Burgos, Spain that was a miniature pair of castanets cast in bronze, with a crucifix engraved on the inside. They very quickly broke and were reattached again and again until they were finally lost. But the actual ring and the little clasp that had held the wandering castanets is the ring I still use to hold my keys.

A key to a new, 4 door Civic came along when we had Henry and when he was only 2 days out of the hospital, we sold the old Civic coupe that had taken me across the country and brought me to the neighborhood that would become my whole life.

And then, the SF keys were returned, and only the Civic key remained as Gordon and I moved back to Atlanta where my family is. The apartment keys that had been the mainstays were no longer there, replaced by the keys to our new Midtown apartment, my sister’s house in Atlanta, my parents’ townhouse in Buckhead and keys to the lake house in North Carolina.

Two weeks after Greyson was born, we gave up the keys to the midtown apartment in exchange for the keys to a fantastic little house in East Atlanta (thank you Rachel!). And a Honda Accord key added its bulk as well. We were so settled and happy in East Atlanta,

but change appeared again. The Civic key was given to the new owner when we sold it to get the cash we needed to move to Chicago. And here, a new keychain was created. It has 3 keys to my apartment on it. No car key because Gordon has the car during the day. And that’s it. And what does this say about me? That I live at home. That I exist there. That the only keys I need are the ones that get me into my apartment and that take me down to the basement where I do our laundry. These keys are attached to the same small brass-colored ring that originally held the castanets, but I’ve added a keychain that I found somewhere in a drawer that has a house in a silver ring. It has nothing to do with me: it’s a loaner from my parents that was given to them by the builder of their townhome. I put it on my key ring to give my keys bulk. Because they felt so small. Because they felt empty.

My sister accuses me of not “living” here in Chicago. Of waiting on the sidelines for the next place. Not putting down roots. Not shimmying myself into some sort of a niche. She’s right, I think. I throw out excuses and reasons and cold temperatures and lack of car. But, really, I haven’t worked hard to make a home here. I’ve closed myself off into our safe little apartment where I don’t have to relate to anyone. Maybe where I don’t have to fail? Don’t have to see an empty life? It’s as if, when I stay in my little cozy world with my beautiful boys, I’m in control, but every time I step out the door I’m dizzy with the directionlessness of not being home. Of not knowing where to go.

But maybe, just as in every other episode of my life, I just need to find the right key chain. Own where I am, and even who I am. Figure out what it means to be me, living right here in Chicago, not yet knowing who and what is going to be in store for me as my life begins to take shape. There is unlimited potential—there is an entire life to craft. People to meet and build friendships with. Journeys to go on that I haven’t even imagined yet. And as difficult as it sometimes is to realize, I really am home.