Doors to Nowhere

I can’t, now, remember the logic behind it, but one of the very first things we did in The Barn was to put in a set of French doors on the second floor. The idea was to build a balcony. I was in my Shakespeare phase.

The balcony still hasn’t been built. I refer to the doors as the Abbot & Costello Doors, the Laurel & Hardy Doors, or The Three Stooges Door. Each of those comedic teams, at one time or another, used the gag of a door that opened to nowhere and involved a fall. When Chef Boy ‘R Mine was small, we nailed a piece of wood across the doors to prevent their opening. That piece of wood was still there when I re-did the room in 2006. (Re-did, hell, DID the room.)  Despite it being nailed shut, The Ex made a down and dirty screen for it which is still there and still ugly.  Screen doors for narrow French doors are hard to come by.

In keeping with the ridiculousness of doors  that go nowhere by way of an ugly screen, I bought the wrong kind of door handle in 2006 to replace the wash cloth stuffed into the door handle hole that had been there since 1990. HMOKeefe installed the door handle. He never questioned the selection; I am, afterall, the woman who installed her towel rods upside down because I like them better that way.  The handle was a mistake, but I’ve grown to love it.  It’s goofy and the master bedroom might be too pretentious without a touch of goofiness here and there.

Dawn

The doors lock from the inside. Makes sense, no?

I love those doors. Someday there will be a balcony.

[I can’t decide if I want French Quarter wrought iron or Deep South veranda with a pergola, or what, but I don’t have the money so the point is moot.]

The French doors are in the master bedroom which was the living room during Phase I, II, and III of The Barn’s transition to house. When we finally moved the living room, the French Door room was the dressing room and the exercise room. When I had the Happy Divorce To Me remodeling, Burl, the Handyman Extraordinaire, moved a doorway to accommodate the new bed and the dressing room became the bedroom.

I wanted to relocate because the room which used to house the bed (and is now the dressing room) has 5 windows and far too much sun in the morning. I was waking up just past o’dark thirty everyday. The sun was better utilized to illuminate the dressing table; and the French doors are friendlier to wake up to. On hot summer nights, I open the doors and listen to the peepers and enjoy the breeze wafting through the lace curtains – the ceiling fan lazily circling and going nowhere.

mmmm, nap

We had a snowstorm today with significant snowfall. I had no place I had to be and nothing I had to do.

[There’s always plenty to do, but today there was nothing pressing. As is customary for me on such days, I accomplished far more than if I had something that had to be done. I’m oppositional like that.]

Before bed last night, I draped the lace curtains up over the curtain rod so I could watch the anticipated snow fall when I woke up. It did and I did and it was a lovely morning. Eventually, I got up, drank a half-pot of coffee, and decided a nap was in order. I lazed away the morning, snoozing and watching the hush fall over my world through those doors.

I have the keys.

It’s not true that they go nowhere. They’re a portal leading to contentment and comfort. The longed-for balcony won’t change much. The doors, all by themselves, bring the outside in and the inside out. It is my place between the worlds – inside/outside, waking/sleeping, daydreams, sweet dreams, midsummer nights and midwinter naps.

The doors are no longer nailed shut. And when Juliet builds her balcony, the lock will still be on the wrong side of the doors leading to Nowhere and Somewhere and all the places in between. 

I have the keys.