Keys
I stepped out of my house the other day on my way to an appointment, and fumbled for a moment to ferret out the key that belonged to my own front door so I could lock up behind me. Getting into my car, I had to drop that key and get another – the one that fit into the ignition, turned it on, enabled me to move the vehicle – and myself in it – so that I could go to the place where I needed to be. On the way there, I stopped at the mail facility and shuffled my key ring searching for yet another key – that of the mail box.
I have the keys to two homes on my keyring, the keys to two separate post office boxes, the car key – and several other things.
There is a small powerful flashlight; a USB drive that does duty as a MedicAlert bracelet warning those who need to know of my medical allergies in case something should happen to me; a bunch of discount store cards for various food stores, a pet store, a general store based in my state – things I routinely tender to cashiers at those places and which get me a few bucks off my purchases. There are a couple of separate keyrings hanging on my main ring, commemorating events or places important to me, reaching back to my cultural heritage and ethnic background, things that would instantly identify me as who and what I am should someone in the know discover me incapacitated or unable to speak but with the key ring on me.
That’s my life there, all gathered together in one bunch of keys and accessories. My keyring serves as a better window into my lifestyle, personality, history and responsibilities than any government-issue ID.
And it struck me that my keyring is a potent symbol of my coming of age, of being an adult human being living in a society that is at a certain level of civilization – because only adults get to have keys that open real locks, that open doors into levels of responsibility and duty that you just don’t have when you’re six and you’re happily waving around a fake keyring containing three or four brightly coloured rubber keys the size of your forearm which are merely a promise of things to come – you get REAL keys when you “grow up”. It is no accident that when you turn 21 – come “of age” – you are handed… a key.
My thoughts turned to writing, as they always do.
What do keys mean in the coming-of-age of a writer? What would the keys of my keyring symbolise in terms of my own writerly identity?
Well, let’s list them.
- Common-or-garden house keys. I own a home. I have an interest in another household whose keys I am entitled to carry. I am a responsible adult who has a life writ in brick and mortar and wood and rooftile and bookshelves and plumbing and utilities bills that get sent to this address, and an Internet connection. All of these things live behind a front door which I can close against the world, and am entitled to lock as a protection against invasion by uninvited strangers. Writerly translation – I live in many worlds, and those worlds need to be constructed in a manner that makes them self-consistent and ‘real’ in the minds of someone else, someone just visiting, the reader who gets to know these worlds cursorily and in passing. I am, in effect, creating a secondary world to which I carry a key – and I am responsible for that world and all that lives in it – and I am also responsible for handing out pass-keys to those who wish to visit, the readers whom I am inviting in. Behind a locked door whereof I am guardian live characters and places which exist nowhere else except in my own mind. One definitely has to grow into this responsibility – the worlds that we create while our writerly training wheels are still on often have doors that do not lock, because we are yet to be trusted with the keys to our kingdoms – and what lies behind these “training” doors are universes where things have not yet shaken down to a safe and consistent level of interaction, and, well, you don’t want people accidentally locking themselves out. Or in. You have to reach a certain level of profficiency and professionalism in order to be trusted with a key. You have to “grow up” as a writer.
- Mail box keys. Communication with the outside world – this is where everything comes to me, letters from friends or fans, bills, junk mail, catalogues, petitions, voting ballots, mysterious packages. You do not get bills unless you are at least theoretically able to be responsible for paying them – it’s another dimension of that “adulthood” thing. Writerly translation – I communicate with readers, both indirectly (the story itself) and directly (when readers write to me with questions or comments). This interaction is not possible unless you share your words with others. You can write for yourself and hide your secret diaries under your mattress where nobody will see them until they come for your cold, dead body – and that is fine, and if you count the definition of “writer” as “one who writes” you may count yourself as one, but if you do this then you are not a public writer, you have not “come of age” as a writer. It is certainly permissible to never want another human eye to light on something you’ve put down on paper, for whatever good and solid reason you might have for that – but if all you’re writing for is catharsis you might as well write the stuff and then go out back to the barbeque and burn it when you’re done. If you write to be read then you need to learn to communicate. If ONE reader tells you that something you have written is unclear or obtuse or confusing, you are permitted to regard that as one person’s opinion and basically ignore it if you so choose. If THREE people tell you these things, you might do well to consider the fact that you are failing at communicating something to other people, and that the fault may well lie within yourself, and take a cold hard look at what you’ve written. And see how you can make it clearer, cleaner, more comprehensible. This is also a sign of writerly maturity, of “coming of age”, and there are some writers who never get here, some writers who declare that everything that they have written is a “work of art” and therefore not to be messed with and if you don’t get it then it’s you who’s the fool, not them, not ever them. If you don’t get past this, if you never gain the ability to receive constructive criticism and to take relevant and considered action on what you’ve been told, you’ll never quite get the key to that mailbox. People aren’t going to communicate with you if you aren’t commuincating with them.
- Car Keys. These turn on your wheels. Without these, you aren’t going anywhere except on foot, or by bicycle, or by bus. On foot is lovely when you’re taking a walk but not so pleasant when you’re struggling home with bags full of groceries. By bicycle is great when you’re taking a pleasure ride but not so much when you have to be somewhere by a certain time and it’s raining and the cars on the road whiz past you and soak you with dirty puddle water or drive you off the road, or a dog chases you down a street, and you arrive where you need to be in an unlovely irritable mood, hot and sweaty, and with a bad case of helmet hair. By bus is terrific and very environmentally responsible – but bus lines don’t run everywhere, you have to work to other people’s timetables, you often need to add that “on foot” phase at either end of the bus ride to get to where you REALLY want to go, and often you have to spend frustrating, dull, unproductive and uncomfortable hours waiting for those buses in bus shelters without a roof in the drizzle. Writerly translation – you aren’t allowed to get an official driver’s licence until you are so many years old. Any younger, andyou can’t reach the pedals properly, or you need to have a learner’s permit and someone else who knows what they’re doing accompanying you when you wish to drive someplace. You are also convinced that you are immortal, and are more likely to take stupid risks with what is essentially a large and massive missile which can HURT people. In other words, you have to be THIS TALL to ride – you have to grow up, become responsible, learn about the craft of driving, know how to get out of a skid or how to drive in a storm. In like wise, you get handed the keys to your own career as a writer when you learn to “drive” by yourself – when you make responsible decisions, when you have a good idea about where you’re going and have a notion about how to get there, when you know the limits on speed or the kind of road that you’re geared to travel on writing-wise. You’re also in a position to appreciate the writing maxim that E.L Doctorow put into the lexicon of writerly quotations – he said that writing is like driving cross-country at night. You can only see a tiny bit of the road that’s revealed by your headlights, and the rest of it is in darkness and you cannot see it at all – but you can make the entire journey that way, simply by trusting what you can see right in front of you, illuminated by your writerly headlights. You need to have a writerly car key, for that.
- Store discount cards. I have four on my keyring. One is to a generic supermarket, one to an organic food place, one to a pet store, one is a general purpose store which sells everything from books to luggage to frozen pizza to bras. Together, they paint a certain picture of the person who carries them. I shop in a generic supermarket when I have to, in the organic place when I can; I am owned by pets; I occasionally have a need to go into a place that sells EVERYTHING and trust to serendipity. Writerly translation – what “stores” does your imagination shop at? The “cards” that you carry define you as a writer. They will define the things that will go into your stories. They will sketch out in your own mind, without your having written one word, what KIND of words you are going to write. Do you carry a fantasy store card (elves, fairies, dragons, wings…)? Or a science fiction store card (spaceships, FTL, aliens, other worlds turning around strange suns…)? Or a mystery store card (private investigators, murders, whodunnits, weapons, scams, rainy nights in unfamiliar streets of strange cities…)? Or a romance store card (roses, champagne, sunset rendez-vous on a seaside balcony, walks on the beach in the moonlight, kisses, the pain of unrequired love…)? Or a mainstream lit store card (angst, dysfunctional families or troubled marriages, juggling everyday living and career…)? Or… what’s on YOUR card…?
- Small flashlight. Same principle as the car headlights, here – I have to see where I’m going, or where the keyhole is when I’m trying to fumble house keys in the dark. Writerly translation – should be obvious. There are times you need to shine a focused light on something, Make sure your batteries are working.
- Medic Alert attachment. I am deathly allergic to at least one kind of drug, mildly allergic to others. I have info on my USB stick about who my doctor is, what my allergies are, what kind of well-meaning medical intervention I may not survive. Writerly translation – what are the sins that you cannot survive as a writer? Do you have a crutch phrase or a soap-box idea neither of which you can let go of but which are beginning to define you? What drives you nuts with OTHER writers? What are the unforgivable writerly sins in YOUR “medic alert” file?
- Sundry attachments. I have two. Two keyrings that dangle from my main keyring which are medallion-like objects bearing writing in a language which my current country of residence will not understand – but which those from the land where I was born would understand instantly. One is a commemoration of an ancient battle iconic to my tribe, to my people. The other is a memento of a special place, a monastery where an aunt of mine made a pilgrimage and sent me a keyring to keep close so that I too might receive a blessing from it. Other people have danglies that are different – a rabbit foot for luck, a silver charm, a Darwin fish, something their child made for them – you just start paying attention to people’s keys and you’ll see all sorts of things there. Writerly translation – who are you? Who WERE you? What changed you? What is it that you bring to the writer’s table – what are the things that are meaningful to you, that ONLY you could bring to that table and do justice to? What defines you – as a person, as a writer?
So. I’m all growed up now. I get my own keys, my own keyring, a whole life to live, a whole writer’s world to play in.
What’s on YOUR keyring…?
