Knock, knock
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Maybe because one of my kids is part of a production of the musical Annie, I’ve been thinking about knocking. Sometimes, it does feel like the hard-knock life.
Some of the knocks here have been literal: Squirrels dropping walnuts on the roof, knock knock. Teenagers pounding on our door late at night and running away.
But there are louder knocks out there, too. A one-two hurricane punch. An election. All the big and little things that rap against our lives and our minds as we move throughout the day.
The night knocking, though a smaller problem, has been unsettling. I’ve come to love the shorter days of fall and the cozy dark. A knock—it’s funny, I can tell whether it’s a friendly visitor or a Halloween trick just from the sound of it—breaks into these moments of quiet.
So I’ve been trying to think of times when knocking is more welcome. We are knocked out by beauty, we knock off work early for the day. The more I said the word over and over again, feeling the satisfied click of my tongue against the back of my teeth, I realized how many songs I knew in the 1990s that celebrated knocking: on heaven’s door, in a boxing ring, wearing cowboy boots (and maybe little else).
What does it mean when something knocks against my door? Does it want to be let in? Or is it just saying that it’s here, that it’s time to look up from whatever it is I’ve been lost in? That it’s time to stand up, open the door, and step outside?
And what else would be better to end with than a knock knock joke? (If you’re so inclined, add your favorite in the comments, or let me know what it is that is knocking around in your mind.)
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Beets.
Beets who?
Beets me, better go find out for yourself.