Giving Up Governance of a Door

   

Sarah has always been at the heart of me . . . the center of friends that come to you without sharing the blood of you.

We grew up in different homes.  She says the door was governed on her home.  It opened at the will of the parent, deciding who to let in and when.  She says the door at my house barely had hinges, barely had a door - it opened before it was knocked.  There were always people in and out with the blessing of whatever parent may or may not be home.

Sarah syas she wanted her grown up house to be like my childhood house.  And strangely, at the time she told me that only a few years ago, my grown up house was more like her childhood house.  When it came to the neighborhood children, Sarah invited and I deliberated.

Not so much anymore.  We have children on our street.  They eat at my table, they play on my porch, they wait at the french doors for Jonah and Caroline to finish math, they build huts in the woods at the end of the road, they play behind our garage, they build villages with Jonah's legos, they parade in the girl's dress up clothes, they make cookies with us, they dance in our kitchen, they leave their toys at our house.  They gather in our driveway for a warm walk at the end of October in Virginia.

We have four doors on this house, and they all seem to open easily.