the sound of a screen door slamming lightly into its frame takes me to a different place - far away from today. my life now is absent of screen doors that break solid barriers and let in the sounds of living and fresh air and allow connection to all that is outside myself. screen doors say i am glad to be part of this world - the ladybugs are my friends - the bumblebees are welcome to coexist alongside me and stray cats are my guests for supper.

but i have no screen door.

polite affluent suburban society does not say - we are connected so come on over and never mind knocking. it does not acknowledge the sunlight and birdsong and wind whispering through the trees who are my companions on the journey, more so than the civilized society of business suits and bmw's. some might say i am blessed - lucky - to live in a center hall colonial with blue shutters and a pool, with money left over to buy useless trinkets if i desire - which i don't. i have the american dream but not my dream. it is too enclosing - too separate - and i feel powerless to break the stone walls and replace them with fresh air and screen doors. in my dream there is no glass in the windows - no solid steel door keeping me safe and locked away in isolation - no computers to give me the false sense of community with other human beings - no television shouting at me to be what i am not - no cars going nowhere special - no appointments at the hair salon to cover the gray roots and nondescript brown of who i really am.

screen doors say i am as real as ants on the kitchen floor and weeds growing among the roses and dirty sneakers tossed by the front door while i make cornbread in the iron skillet with crisco sizzling at the edges and meatloaf cooling on the stove. screen doors say we are not meant to be alone - we are part of everything and everything is welcome - come on in. they say mema is always home with windows open and dogs napping on the front porch and let's play outside where we only have one step back over the threshold to the inside where mama's baking oatmeal cookies and daddy's shelling peas. screen doors say life is simple and everything you need is right here in the sounds of children outside and the smells of pork roast in the crock pot and apples baking in the oven - without all the useless meaningless cushions surrounding us and molding us and making us what we do not want to be.

screen doors say i have a life filled with abundance of nature and green grass and chipmunks by the dozen making family compounds underneath my rock garden. they say serenity is mine for the taking as i am embraced by the swaying trees and cooing doves nesting in the backyard.

but i don't have screen doors.

i have a double steel door painted colonial blue to feign friendliness and sliding glass doors that are never clean because of dirty dog feet protesting the need for enclosure at all. when i gather enough courage to step outside away from the mind-haunting busyness i gasp with pleasure at the beauty and bounty all around me - beyond locked doors. for a little while i join what is real and true - the walls open and gardenia perfumed air rushes in - air conditioned fog and electronic blindness peel away layer by layer until i can see brilliant emerald and amethyst and bright golden yellow. a woodpecker tapping with passion wakes my ears to the symphony that is always bursting forth among the trees and crickets and blue jays. i am awake - vibrating with energy - trembling with pleasure that i am still alive and this is when i want to throw the laptops and cell phones and ipods and all artificial life into the pool and walk away - follow the brown and white spotted fawn into the forest - shed my clothes and let the brown and gray replace blond in magnificent honesty -

and never ever go back.