LovE & kEYs

"I think somewhat furtively of all the keys I have ever received or given. A sign of trust and, when they are given without strict utility or purpose, a token of love. When we give a set of keys, or are given them, or when we return them, or take them back again, might this be how love is measured out, between lovers?

More accurate to say that, for lovers, each is the other's key. A matter of precise adjustment, exactness of contour. Nothing to do with complementarity, in fact. The key does not complete the lock. It opens the lock, it activates it, lends its power to it. The lover gives the other back to himself or herself, to the fullness of which he or she is capable. With that enigmatic hardness proper to love.

Love once fled is either a closed door or a door impossible to close. Think of that: of our loves as a bunch of keys, each in turn opening or closing, not our whole being perhaps (there is no such thing as our whole being), but this or that portion. A drawer here, a district there, a door, a vehicle.

It's time I let myself out of the house."

(from "How Are Things?" by Roger-Pol Droit)