Locked Out

Most everyone has been locked out of a house or an apartment at least once.  For me it seems to have become a ritual to settling in to a new place.  I jest, of course, and yet I take certain "signs" related to similar experiences I've had in the past, to be indicative of things I need to pay attention to.  This is far better than succumbing to the thought that "I must be getting forgetful and therefore old".  


Enchanted with our new life at Biltmore Lake in North Carolina, we set out one evening to walk around the lake after dinner.  Mornings and evenings are the best times to follow the trail which is out the front door, crosses the road and is reportedly 2.2 miles long.  It follows the perimeter of a 65 acre, man made lake 2,000 ft. above sea level. Before leaving the house I remembered to lock the front door, take the key, grab my ID which we were told we should wear when walking the trails to prove we are residents. I also pocketed a small head flashlight...just in case.  It was cooling off after a warm day as we walked along at a brisk pace enjoying the ducks leisurely paddling by, some children still playing in the water as we rounded the beach area, and greeting other walkers and joggers as we passed along the way. We were marveling, as we had already done a dozen times each day, at having landed in such a beautiful place after a long summer of endless clearing out, packing, making plans, and lying awake nights wondering how it would all turn out.  Having found a buyer for our Vermont house in four days we were still reeling from how it could have all happened so fast.


It was getting dark and I was reminded  that I'd come 1,000 miles south from Vermont where the evenings are shorter.  As we crossed the road to hike up the final hill to our new townhouse, I fished in my pocket for the key. No key.  Perhaps I had forgotten to lock the door and left it on the counter.  I put on my flashlight, double checked my pockets and still no key.  I decided I would willingly succumb to the thought that I'm getting old and forgetful if only I had left the front door unlocked.  But it wasn't. I had remembered to lock the front door and had lost the key.


Strangely my first thought was what my neighbors were going through in Vermont at that very minute.  We had been immersed for several days in trying to imagine living through Hurricane Irene and had images of the destruction in Rochester, and the picture of Gt Hawk Colony being cut off from everywhere when all bridges were washed away.   The truth is, we were suffering some very real "survivor's guilt" at having moved away from Rochester, Vermont just a few weeks before the hurricane hit. It was hard to shake the idea that we should be shouldering some of the burden along with our neighbors in Vermont. Instead we were walking around beautiful Biltmore Lake. 


My second thought was a flashback to the first weekend in November 1990. I saw Art, Hayden (who was 13 at the time) and me, closing the door behind us of the new home we had purchased on the mountain at Gt. Hawk in Rochester, Vermont.  We had driven  six hours from New Jersey for the weekend to take a look at the first house we had ever purchased.  It snowed hard that Saturday and by evening there was a foot or more on the ground - a gorgeous first snowfall of the season.  Someone suggested a walk in the snow and before any of us could think, we had slammed the front door behind us.  It was locked and we had left the key indoors.  We were locked out on a quiet mountain blanketed in snow on a Saturday evening in Vermont.


We knew no one on the mountain but saw a light down the driveway across the street.  All three of us trudged through the deep snow, knocked on the door and met new neighbors who let us in.  We waited about an hour until the realtor who had sold us the house came through the storm to deliver a key.  That very next morning we hid a key under the front deck that remained there for the next 21 years.


My thoughts swung back to the problem at hand. The solution was not difficult but we needed some tools.  Knocking on a neighbor's door a few houses down, I explained our situation and asked to borrowed a step ladder, a pair of scissors and a screw driver.  While Art held the stepladder, I climbed up to a side window I had left open and proceeded to neatly cut out the screen as if I had been used to doing this all my life.  Then I shimmied through the window and was in!  I unlocked the front door,and was surprised not to get caught breaking into my own house.  


The next morning as I got up to get coffee, Art dangled the lost key in front of me. He had already been out on the trail determined to find it. Now the key is back, the screen is repaired, and there is an extra key on a nail tucked under the back deck. If we ever move again I will be sure to put the extra key under the deck before we go through the ritual of being locked out.