If this beautiful corner with the red gate weren't my own home, I'd stop while walking by and take its picture. The bougainvillea has self-seeded there and reaches for the sun. The oak hydrangea is chartreuse and about to bloom. The asparagus fern has recovered from the digging last winter and reaches up beyond the lens of the shot. Some would say it was onanistic (not me). But if it weren't my own home, I wouldn't know this, perhaps wouldn't even see it. The gate would invite me in to somewhere cozy and enclosed, a secret garden of twittering birds and laughing children, an easy chair, a beloved book. Would that I had new eyes to see and be grateful.
