A few years ago I was on my way back home to Brooklyn from a friends house. I had been in between jobs and scrambling to try and make ends meet, pleading with the universe to in some way, somehow help me. While at her house, in the midst of my frustrated "What am I going to do?" meltdown, a bar regular who we both knew texted my friend asking for my information because he wanted to hire me for makeup on a girl group he was recording with. Problem (temporarily) solved. So I'm on my way home and the man sitting next to me got up at one of the stops. Out of the corner of my eye I see a tangled something dressed in that yellow/green glow in the dark kind of color that had revealed itself when the man got up. Ever curious, I picked it up, untangled it and it quickly took its proper form, a star. It was one of those shape bracelets that were popular a few years back. In that moment I felt like Mario and began to laugh. I had found an invincibility star while on the Path! (I was riding the Path train from NJ-NY)
Fast forward 7 months to October 2011
Prospect Park. One of the reasons I loved my first Brooklyn apartment was purely because of its proximity to this emerald. I can't explain my draw to it but this park has pulled me into it since I first visited Brooklyn, before ever moving. One fall afternoon a friend and I were wandering through per usual and the day was already demonstrating itself to be of the wonder filled variety. A rainbow orb, which I had never seen before nor since embraced the sky above us. The sun was not at its center. It was solely a perfect ring of color. A few minutes after noticing the prism in the sky, I saw tiny mushroom "steps" that had grown near the base of a tree. I remember feeling like I was floating, my heart full of wonder and gratitude for the beauty that kept presenting itself to me. As I can easily get carried away floating, I sat at the roots of the tree feeding it water in exchange for providing me with a seat and some grounding. I took the scene in front of me in and conversed a bit with the wind. At some point while looking around, my eyes wandered to my feet and the awe took over. Directly beneath where I sat were a set of keys. Partially buried in the dirt and covered with leaves and grass, they had been there for some time. Only 3 of the 5 were above ground. While the average person might adopt a thought pattern of "Big deal. Someone sat there before and lost their keys.", my own thought pattern and sight had evolved at this point to "What are the odds that in this giant park filled with hundreds, maybe thousands (I don't know), of trees, directly after seeing a rainbow ring in the sky, I sat at this exact spot and found these keys. While some of them were kind of average looking keys, there were two that looked so old and beautiful and I wondered what they all opened. Though I had found other objects since the star, these keys, much like finding the star made me feel as though I were in a real live video game. From that day onward, life began to feel like a scavenger hunt. Each time I found a key,(I found 14 in NY, 1 in Hawaii) I adopted the idea that life was opening some kind of door for me. I was unlocking some part of myself that had been hidden away. I found one before working a very important NYFW show. I found another literally in the middle of a jungle in Hawaii. The last I found in a dark alley while a just eclipsed full moon rose in LA. Until today.
With wide eyes and wild hair for whatever reason I woke up fully energized early this morning. I fed the cats and Scrappy seemed anxious to pee. He's not generally a morning dog and has to be coaxed to go outside but this morning he paced at my side ready to go. As I put his collar and leash on, my Dad tried to insist he'd take him but I shut him down. "He likes to go to the corner where..." and I cut him off saying I always let dogs walk me, that he would take me wherever he wanted to go, it was fine. We walked to the same place he generally goes to and rather than head for the large patch of grass to handle his business he stopped and sat. Looking down, there they were nestled in the dirt. 4 old keys. One coated in rust, all different sizes and types bound together by a rusty old wire. I don't know what they open, I don't care how they got there. I found them, they're mine now and I can't wait to see what they unlock.
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