I opened my refrigerator the other morning and thought about Santa Fe. A quick, quiet association that passed through me before I even registered it.
There was a time when a refrigerator was just a refrigerator. A door was just a door. You opened it. You got what you needed. You closed it. End of interaction.
Simple.
Now I hesitate sometimes. There’s a pause somewhere in the back of my mind that didn’t exist before. A kind of awareness. Because I’ve stepped through one before. At Meow Wolf Santa Fe, I opened a refrigerator and walked into something that didn’t follow the rules I understood.
And the strange part is—I didn’t hesitate. No panic. No resistance. Just— Okay. We’re here now.
It makes me wonder how many other doorways I’ve walked past without stepping through. Not literal ones. Not hidden passages behind kitchen appliances (but maybe?!) But moments that could have opened into something else entirely—if I had let them.
The thing is, I am a curious person. If I see a door, I open it. Whether it’s in a place we’re filming or somewhere inside someone’s mind. If it holds the promise of expansion, my curiosity tends to win.
For better or worse.
But familiarity changes things.
When you know a space—like your own kitchen—you stop questioning it. A refrigerator door doesn’t feel like a possibility. It feels like a guarantee. You already know what’s on the other side.
Most people don’t open their closet expecting to be surprised.
But what about the doors you don’t recognize as doors? The ones hidden inside something familiar. The ones you move past because nothing about them asks you to look twice. The ones within yourself.
Maybe it’s just this—
A willingness to let something feel unfamiliar for a second longer than you normally would. To not immediately explain it. Or categorize it. Or move past it.
I still open doors the same way. But there’s a quiet knowing that the world isn’t as fixed as it looks. That reality has edges you can soften, if you know how.
Not every doorway leads somewhere new. But once you’ve walked through one that does— you don’t forget that it’s possible.
