Keys are symbolic of so much. Ownership. One's place is society. Status. Possessions. Here is my/our keychain, as of today. It is very much "our" keychain. We only have one car, so whomever takes the car takes the keys. The other key is to our PO Box in town. Our key collection may appear slim, but really this signifies a re-accumulation of keys from our low count of zero.

It was an interesting process leaving town, and I was thinking about keys at that time, too. I had the typical keyring for a two-car-owning, home-owning, working individual. Keys to both cars, with a key to a club antitheft device thrown in. Keys to multiple different locks around the house. Keys to the office. Keys to the mailbox. Probably a few more I am forgetting. And I pretty much didn't leave home without them. How could you? Maybe if you were walking to the corner store and someone else was home to let you in when you got back. So, without even realizing it you have this keychain that goes around with you for most of your waking hours.

You don't notice it until you don't have it anymore.

First one car went. The keys themselves are the most physical aspect to the passing of title. You have to line up each key into the slot in the metal ring and torque them out one by one and hand them over. Next to go were keys to the office. Then the keys to the house. Then at the very last minute the keys to the second car. Friend Tom drove us to the airport and that was it, no more keys. This lasted for a period of weeks, absolutely no keys to anything, until we bought Ruben the car. That's right we have decided on Ruben, which came from someone's suggestion of Ruby and the idea that the car is in fact a boy car. It also happens to be the name of the protagonist of a book I am reading right now called Peace Like a River. Highly recommended.

Back to the keys. I'd have to say handing over the keys to the house was the hardest. And yet there is another element to this process of becoming untethered, and it is the entrance of chance and circumstance into one's life. Objects will be replaced. Why that particular car? Because the lot was next to the grocery store and we were right there. Why that house? The barber told me about it. Such chance is not always welcome.

And sometimes it is.