Fridge Door Becomes Sacred Shrine

Some of my Buddhist friends have shrines made of gray stone or polished wood in their living rooms, a serene Buddha sitting on the top, smiling that satisfied smile. At his feet are offerings purple rose petals, coins, stones, seashells, pictures of family members and ancestors, oranges, sticks of lavender, even bubble gum. Each shrine is an inspiring place of sacred kitsch where you go to plant your dreams.

I thought about getting a shrine for a while, maybe one imported from Indonesia that I saw at a furniture store off the freeway near my house. This shrine was intricately carved, and painted red and gold and white. But it felt too remote from my experience. I’m from Kentucky; growing up, the only thing close to a shrine I remember was a collection of vintage beer cans that my friend Mary’s brother had arranged in a large pyramid in their basement.

I didn’t think an elegant Indonesian shrine would look right in my cramped living room, with the tube and the VCR, the Macintosh and the cat’s scratching post.

After I thought about it some more, I realized I already had a shrine, although it wasn’t in the living room. It was my refrigerator door.

The fridge door is a sacred site in my home, plastered with offerings to the gods and goddesses of motivation. Taped on it are newspaper headlines like: “When Necessary, She Was a Lioness,” and fortunes such as “You are in your own way. Please stand aside.” There’s a photo I cut out from a magazine of a 73-year-old swimmer named Marie. She is so sleek in her Lycra snakeskin one-piece, it always reminds me there’s nothing to fear about aging. And this is the third refrigerator door of mine on which a faded, stained Carl Sandburg poem, “Dreams,” has hung. Here’s one of my favorite parts: “A person who has a dream is like a river whose energies flow around and beyond obstacles, a river that always finds its way to the sea.”

I notice that most people who come to my house are drawn to the fridge door the way I’m drawn to my Buddhist friends’ shrines. I used to think some of the stuff I had on it was too personal, and I’d hide it before people came over because I was embarrassed.

After a while, I stopped because I realized that if I was hiding stuff on my fridge, I was hiding who I was.

I think other people also make their fridge doors sacred sites. My friend Michaela has this quote from Rilke on hers: “The life unlived, that you could die from.” Another friend has this: “A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.” A frustrated poet friend made a big sign that she taped to her fridge that says, “Form is an ass in tight jeans.”

I once lived in a dark basement apartment for five years with a minifridge in the makeshift kitchen, the kind you find in dorms or hotel rooms. The kitchen never felt quite right for me - there was no point of focus. One of the first things I did after I moved to a new place with a real fridge was to tape up something my friend Brian once said about Van Gogh: “He didn’t learn how to paint - he learned how to see.”

But the most inspirational thing I have on my fridge is a calendar honoring breast cancer victims. On one of the months is a naked onebreasted woman with her arms outstretched in triumph and joy, her gaze to the sky, a grapevine tattooed over her mastectomy scar.

The door to my fridge is a door to my interior. In the morning, between feeding the cat and making toast, I almost always stop for a few minutes and read something on it. It’s my spiritual antioxidant for the day, to remind me, as I’m rushing out the door to make it to work,that the life unlived - that’s what you could die from.