perspective

we lose it like keys, knowing, always, that it must be here, somewhere, but we have a way of putting it down in strange places, mindlessly tossing it onto counters or in drawers, the bottom of a purse, the pocket of that jacket we hardly ever wear.

and we might not even know that we’ve lost it, its hiddenness will be hidden by our failure to notice that it’s missing. until there is something to lock or to start or to open, and then we search frantically for a long time and after that, not at all, thinking it will turn up, it has to be around here somewhere. we give up, a little.

and then suddenly one day, there it is. a whole bunch of perspective dangling from that little ring.

you jangle it in your hand, wanting to hear it to be certain, check the shapes to make sure it is your perspective and not someone else’s.

and of course, because you found it in such a ridiculous place, you feel foolish for ever having lost it at all. and so you make sure to hang it on the hook by your back door, right in plain sight which is where it is supposed to hang always except, of course, when you are using it. you chose that spot so you won’t forget, you walk by it a million times a day, it’s such an obvious place.

and then one day you go out for a run and you lock the door by mistake and now you know just exactly where those keys are but you cannot make any use of them because, once again, they are not where you need them to be at just the time that you need them.

but then as you sit there waiting, wondering, pondering whether it’s best to break a window and climb in or just hope that soon someone will come home and let you in, maybe even feeling sorry for yourself a little, you start to realize that it’s not the keys, themselves, that are all that important. it’s not the unlocking and the locking and the starting that matters, it’s that you have something to unlock and something to start and a hook on a wall to hang those keys on in the first place.

and then suddenly, you have a whole new set of keys, right there in your pocket, and a whole new row of doors to unlock.

and you realize how lucky and how blessed

and how alive you are.


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