One of the more unusual tasks that I often find myself involved in is being a porter. When I had to walk some distance to open a door today at work for some new co-workers, I asked my neighboring Spanish-speaking coworkers if they knew the Spanish word for a porter. One of them suggested portero but thought it was a rather indecorous way to describe someone. The other thought that the expression “ama de las llaves” (or “lady of the keys”) was better, though I hardly see how that could be the case. In the end, neither of them could give a good word for porter in Spanish, suggesting the familiar concept of having someone be a doorman or gatekeeper in English is not something that has a good analogue in Spanish, which I suppose is a bit puzzling to me.

For a variety of reasons the idea of gatekeeping has always been an appealing one to me. One of my favorite tasks as a teacher in Thailand, for instance, was closing the gates every night and making sure that everyone was safe and sound and quiet before I went to sleep myself. Other than that, I have always found the idea and practice of opening and closing gates to be an enjoyable one. Though the task may be mundane in the eyes of others, it is something that I have always enjoyed to do personally for reasons that probably extend deep into my personality. Gates are important because they provide the access points for well-defended areas, and so controlling gates controls the access into defenses, a matter of extreme personal interest given my serious and deep interest in defense. Additionally, gates were places of ancient business, where important matters were conducted.

In my own quirky way, gatekeeping comes somewhat naturally to me. For example, it is an easy thing for me to get to know new people and to determine if they are indeed friendly enough as people to be accepted by others. Likewise, I write a lot about legitimacy, especially as far as it goes with music and art and culture and my own life. Being a person of strong defenses as well as an awareness of the insecurities and defenses of others, those areas of communication and access between strongholds have always held a strong degree of interest to me in a literal and metaphorical way. Even if I’ve never considered myself suitable to be a bouncer at a bar, for example, the thought of being responsible for deciding who is allowed in and who is not is an appealing one to me. I guess there is no better way of ensuring that one is a respected insider, something that has always been a treasured and elusive goal in my life, than determining who is in and who is not. I suppose I was destined to be a porter from very early on.

I am not sure what that says about me, whether it speaks highly of my ideal of belonging and my willingness to serve those institutions that would accept me for who I am, or whether it speaks to the immense difficulties of my goals of belonging and achieving legitimacy for myself. To be sure, my own efforts in life have been viewed by at least some people who know me as heroic, but the results have been rather modest at best so far. Part of the reason for that, no doubt, is that being a gatekeeper is more than a matter of being skilled or just in one’s dealings, but also in being accepted, and that is something I simply struggle far too much at to feel comfortably about. One cannot be in the business of accepting others until one has a safe place where one is accepted for oneself. Perhaps that chance will come in its proper time, hopefully soon.