Locked In or Locked Out?

                                  Who Has the Key?

"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open."
                                     John Barrymore

In this house where I am staying in Costa Rica, there are nine doors. On all except one, there are double doors with locks, including iron barred ones. Each door has its own key, so there are nine sets of double keys. Outside the house, there are four gates in the concrete and iron fence, each with its own key. Are you following my drift here? Are you counting? Each time one of us goes out of the house, there is a scrambling of keys and trial runs for what key opens which door, and given that this is an ocean front property, almost all the locks are corroded from salt spray in the air. I honestly don't know what we would do if the house caught fire in the middle of the night--jump from the balcony I suppose, assuming we could open the door from the upstairs bedrooms.

Next door, and up and down the beach on either side, there are houses of neighbors. Their yards are without fences. Their doors are open most of the time, their animals come and go from the yards, as do their children. Each morning, little children in blue and white  school uniforms walk past the patio while I'm writing this blog. Some are accompanied by a parent, most are not. Yesterday, two little boys, perhaps 2 or 3 years old, ran naked on the beach, splashing into the water along the shoreline. No parent hovered over them.

This morning, while doing my research, I ran across this quote from Elayne Boosler: "I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three." I wonder, is our "stuff" really this precious--that we would lock ourselves behind iron doors day in and day out?

One of our neighbors, a local, made a special trip over here yesterday to invite us to his birthday party tonight. He's known us for less than a week, but saw fit to share his birthday with strangers. If we're not careful, a bunch of happiness may slide in through all the iron and concrete and the rusty locks.

                                         In the Spirit,
                                             Jane
 l