Hello my dear GUT friends.
Here we are, on our last day of noticing and celebrating meaningful, astonishing, beautiful things we overlook every day. Through drawing we’re slowing down and giving these things our attention, and sharing the beauty we discover with one another. It’s so darn cool.
Today I am going to point us toward something I think most of us overlook — and often lose — despite our entire lives depending on them. They tell a story about who we are, the people in our lives, our relationship to property and possession. They are…
Our keys.
I made the drawing above about 15 years ago. I was walking down Valencia Street in San Francisco’s Mission District one day and spotted a man dressed head to toe in navy blue walking toward me. What caught my eye wasn’t his uniform, but the flash of silver on his waist. A TON of keys were attached to his belt, jangling about. As he passed me, I asked, “Excuse me… Are all those keys yours?”
Since I could talk, I’ve been chatting up strangers. When my parents took me on my first airplane flight, I squirmed out of their laps to wander the aisle on my own saying hello to everyone. Years later I was traveling overseas for the first time with my best friend Tascha, and she told me I had to quit stopping to talk to every stranger on the street so we could visit the sites we’d come all that way to see. I have never been afraid of strangers. I have always been curious about them. And thank goodness, to date, I’ve been pretty lucky. Every single person has been kind. Sometimes a little annoyed, but kind.
I am an observant person. I notice things about people that I find unique or interesting. I am also still that little girl on the plane and the teenager chatting up strangers. I see a unique or interesting attribute as an opportunity to say hi. I ask a question, and a conversation begins. Doing this my whole life led me to work overseas, become a social worker, develop a practice called drawn journalism. And it led me to talk to the guy with the keys on Valencia Street.
“Are all those keys yours?” I asked. His answer: yes and no. He was the super for a bunch of buildings, and each building had its own key ring. “So every key is to someone’s apartment?” “Yes.“ “And behind each of those doors is a whole life that you have access to??” He looked at me a little weird.
I explained I was an artist and I drew stories, and I liked that every key on those rings protected a whole life. Essentially, he was walking around with hundreds of stories on his belt — and could I draw them?? He agreed to let me take a photo, and the above is what I drew based on that photo. (Fifteen years later, this ring of keys drawing was used as a visual prompt in a fun collaborative project with the amazing people at AudioFlux. You never know where things will lead. But you have to make them to find out.)
One other quick “ring of keys” reference — favorite graphic novelist and human Alison Bechdel spoke my love language of attention and queerness in her incredible graphic memoir Fun Home. (Last May, I got to introduce her on stage to talk about her most recent book, Spent: A Comic Novel.) In Fun Home, a young Alison meets a butch lesbian delivery person and finds herself feeling a deep connection. It’s not only the short hair and boots, but her “ring of keys.” Those keys held so much more meaning than just keys. They were unlocking a whole identity in little Alison. (And if you saw the musical based on the memoir, it’s the world’s best song. Take a listen below.)
Alright, with that, let’s get to drawing our last delight of the week!
