Gates, Doors, and Arbors

At the suggestion of good friends in Virginia, Bill and Linda Ingham, I made a foray around the neighborhood in search of gates. Along the way I found some mildly interesting doors and arbors to add to the mix.

 

It is hard to know wy some gates are in good repair and others are not. Much in the same way that it is sometimes hard to tell why some parts of the country are doing well and others are not.

Some houses, like some places are monochrome...all one flavor. If you are immersed in such a place it might feel like the movie Pleasantville where everything is just fine until you discover new colors and experiences.

In other places, the entrance is quite homey and comfortable even if it is a bit remote and far away.

And some places we've been feel like a jungle even if it is all really manmade and intended to be that way.

But much of the world today is faced with a plain, unadorned "do not enter" decoration that tells the world that you are not really all that friendly and interested in meeting others.

But we can still find places that are welcoming and fee a little like home, even if we don't live there.

Even when a place chooses a mixed metaphor and strange colors, we can find a something to identify with. Perhaps it is because it neatly cared for.

But what appeals to most of us, most of the time is the traditional space. A place where people act and dress as we are used to and keep their homes tidy in the usual way.

 But these are the really boring places. This is why E and I prefer to travel (someday again we will) and see new and different places filled with new and different people. If you live in a neighborhood filled with identical houses with identical gates and arbors, how do you know where you are? How do you find your way home? If we are all the same, how do you know who you are?

A visit to a different place is required. Not just a short stay, but a long, relaxing immersion in the culture of a different place with a new word for everything, a new way to doing lots of things, and a fresh look at life. Just as every house on the block is unique in some way, every place in the country and in the world is unique, as it should be.

Travel is a mirror that teaches us about ourselves while showing us the world. I think this is what is wrong with America...we are too insular, too much to ourselves. We are fascinated with living where it is safe and familiar. Without exploring the unfamiliar, the at-least-slightly-scary, and the downright foreign, how can we ever know what is inside us?