When God Closes a Door, He Opens a Window

Lately, this trite phrase has kept popping into my head. When God closes a door, he opens a window. It has been said with such regular predictability that it's easy to forget that it's nevertheless based in truth.

I have two cats: Lulu is the indoor cat, and the Wookiee exists both indoors and outdoors. Someday I'll talk about the reasons for this distinction, but for now, I just want to focus on Lulu and her quest for the out-of-doors.

On nice summer days like the ones we've been experiencing lately in Western PA, I love to take a book outside, sit on my deck, enjoy the sun, and bask for a while. The robins squawk intruders away from their nests, the mockingbirds perch on the topmost branches and annoy their neighbors with travel stories, and the bees wonder if the scent of my sunscreen means I'm a flower.

Meanwhile, Lulu squats just inside the screen door and meows. This isn't cute little, "Hi, I'm here," kinds of meows. It's all-out, someone's-trying-to-kill-me, distressed meows. Occasionally punctuated with a claw in the screen for good measure. This cat desperately wants to be outside whenever I am.

Lulu's existence is defined by closed doors, and each time she makes a bid for freedom, slam! She's foiled again.

But I'm not cruel. When it's not so hot outside that we need the air conditioning on, and not so cold that we'd freeze in minutes, I like to leave a window open for Lulu to sit in so she can watch and hear and smell all the action outside. She knows the sound, too. Whenever I open a window, she comes bolting from wherever she was and leaps onto the windowsill, thrilled for this taste of the out-of-doors.

Recently, I've felt that all the doors I thought I would walk through have slammed in my face, just millimeters from breaking my nose. And I see the windows opening all around me, but am I running to see what they're opening onto? Am I dropping everything to fly onto the windowsill and peer outside?

It seems I could take a lesson from Lulu. True, her dearest dream is to be an outdoor cat and walk in and out through the doorway. But that doesn't lessen her excitement for the windows in her life that are opening all the time.