LAVINIA ZAINEA

Closed Doors

      When I was little, the doors in my house had keys. We would lock each door as we moved from one room to another, that is, the adults did. We, the children, would stare incredulously, fascinated by the mystery of what was left behind and of whatever was in front of us. When we grew older, we would tease each other by locking the others into a room where they would be trapped for a considerable amount of time if our parents were not around. I found myself a few times in this situation, and that is how I discovered treasures that I had not been aware of before. Many people must have been trapped in those rooms before, because there were always pieces of written paper lying about, fragments of thoughts put into diaries, under book covers or inside the doll house. I read them all. I found out many things about the story of my family, and it was as fascinating to discover them, as it was to secretly play my mother’s mandolin, hidden behind another closed wardrobe door whose keys I had found before.
      I must draw my love for closed spaces, and possibly for written words, from that period of my life, when I found myself locked in rooms I did not want to get out of.