The Key

Remember the job I told you about in September, the one I said was
too small for my soul? Well, I never left it but I will be exiting
the cage as I was pink-slipped yesterday, along with almost 3000
others. It will be a long goodbye too, just to make it really special
– we were told it will take a few months. I’ve been there nearly
twenty years and it’s going to hurt. Today a younger co-worker
suddenly blurted out “I’m going to miss you”, with bright
glassy eyes. Our stages in life will prevent us from continuing our
friendship beyond our workplace. That’s just the way it is and we
both know it. I was touched when she softly and endearingly thanked
me for inspiring her. I know she meant that I, as the elder of our
party, showed her the way in some approximation. I like to imagine
that someday in the future, when she is the age I am today, she might
remember me well.

I have been thinking about the women who have led the way before
me, in whose footsteps I try to tentatively place my own. There is
Mom, of course, my grandmothers, some of the muses I have written
about here and some yet to be written. But I also turn to literature
and books for my life guides. I found one last year in Mrs. Delany,
as presented to me by Molly Peacock in her delightful book, “The
Paper Garden, An Artist (Begins her Life’s Work) at 72”, and now
I am finding one in Mrs. Diana Vreeland, the great visionary stylist and
editor. Both women reinvented themselves, most remarkably in their
70’s, an age when women are usually considered to be too old for new
beginnings. Mrs. Delany entered one of her most creative periods by
scissoring her famous “mosaiks” at 72, and Mrs. Vreeland
began working as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s historical costume
curator at 70. Their art is still considered timeless, beautiful, and
important.

I’ve called this post The Key because yesterday, the day the ax
fell, I was entering a friend’s office building to collect her for
dinner. Just beyond the glass door, I noticed something glint on the
floor of the lobby. As I leaned over, I saw that it was a silver key.
Not an ordinary key, but a gorgeous oversized decorative one with
black onyx stones and diamante. It’s special looking as though it
would fit the keyhole of a child’s playhouse or a secret garden door.
And since I found it in a large empty office lobby, I pocketed it,
rightly or wrongly and it will stay with me now.  If one believes in
signs of the universe, perhaps it is meant as a message to me, it
so obviously shouts KEY.  As to what it will open, I’m
not yet sure.