A Room With Many Doors

A Room With Many Doors
It’s only seven-thirty, and I’ve already had a nap. It wasn’t my intention. I fell asleep on the old loveseat in the next room just after I finished my first cup of coffee. About fifteen minutes later, I awoke from a dream that evaporated as soon as I opened my eyes and remembered where I was. My mouth was partly open. I felt as if I’d been away somewhere. I half-expected to find my mother looking at me from across the room. Her bedroom light was on earlier, before dawn. I saw it from the end of the hall, shining under her door. She was up. I could hear her moving about the room. Then the light went off. I sat down to work. As my mind drifted from thought to thought, I wrote several disconnected sentences, then discarded them. I read a letter from my nephew. I thought about Walt Whitman, then about Woody Guthrie, and about how hard it is to picture Woody without his guitar. I was certain it meant something important. A man with a guitar, restless, driven, forever on the road, playing and singing what he sees and hears, a witness to his time. Isn’t that what life is for? I discarded a few more sentences and watched my mind as it wandered further and further afield. Somehow, everything had become slippery and smooth, light, distant, elusive as mist. I was almost asleep. My fingers were resting on the keys. I knew it, but didn’t know it. I cared, but didn’t care. Finally, I got up, took my coffee to the loveseat, sat down, and let my head rest against the back cushion. Within seconds, I felt the muscles in my legs begin to relax. As the tension drained out through my toes, it left a warm puddle on the floor. With my last remaining strength, I raised my cup, finished the coffee, and set the cup on the table beside me. There was no need to close my eyes. They closed themselves. I felt I was floating on air. Welcome home. You’ve been away so long. Where have you been? We missed you. The other side of the mountain. At the edge of a far-off shore. On a train with ghostly riders. In a room with many doors. *September 9, 2006* Previous Entry Next Entry Return to Songs and Letters About the Author	Main Page Author’s Note Background Notebook A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Let’s Eat Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation E-mail & Parting Thoughts Flippantly Answered Questions
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