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What We Pass Through Changes Us                                            Ginger Hill, 2005

The door asked me to move over so I got out of its way. My madras scarf hung on its brass knob. The door asked me to please remove my scarf. Would I also crack it a tad so that it could hear the radio from the kitchen? The more the door made such requests the more I wished I’d never listened to it in the first place. Hush, did you hear that noise? asked the door. No, I hadn’t. By now I was convinced that the door’s imagination was running away with it. As if surmising my mood, the door, of its own volition, swung itself back and forth like a naughty child gearing up for a temper-tantrum. The hinges the door hung from hadn’t been oiled in years and they sent a creepy sound throughout the house. The door’s reprehensible behavior began to drive me up the wall. It reminded me of several eighth grade students who never liked poetry, didn’t listen, and least of all would never change a single line in their poems. They had casually tapped their fingers on their desks until I was ready to pull out every hair. “Stop,” I yelled at the door. At this the door paused, then shot back, “Make me.” The door was wholeheartedly convincing, so affirmed in its stand, what was I to do? The house has other rooms with better behaved doors, so I found one. Just as I settled into assumed comfort, tea and book in hand, the porch door began similar nonsense. It was as if a plague of bad behavior in doors spread throughout the entire house. Relieved, I spotted my dog’s igloo outside which has no door. I remembered its soft L.L. Bean mattress. I would have to chase the dog from his own bedding, from his own home. Friends would later find me in the dog’s house, sound asleep, mumbling something about the irony of doors, their lax behavior.