Gates

I like bridges;  I said that already, a few days ago - bridges are about possibility, the chance to cross over to somewhere new, to continue your journey over new ground.  And I also like gates - I suppose the picture at the top of my blog makes that clear enough - for much the same reason.  Without a gate, the wall is entire and impenetrable;  but the gate allows you to pass through, and even before that, it allows you to see through.  I photographed the gate at the top of my blog a couple of years ago on Arnside Knot, a favourite place I don't visit anything like often enough, in Cumbria.  Let me add, below, another gate on the same height, but with such a special view:

Down below is the estuary of the River Kent, and the beginnings of the great sands of Morecambe Bay - and the railway viaduct crossing from Arnside to Grange-over-Sands . . . and then there are the hills and clouds beyond.  So many possibilities in that scene, so many possible journeys to make!  What temptation there is to pass through that gate!

Not all gates, of course, provide access.  Some lead to private and secret places.  Some, indeed, are more barrier than entrance, high solid things that have only messages of denial and exclusion for the passer-by.  "Keep walking," they say, "there's nothing for you here."  But some gates, even though you can't pass through them, do provide just a tantalising glimpse of someone else's bit of our planet.  Anyway, even when a gate is accessible you don't have to pass through it (in the end I didn't go through the one just above) - it's just enough to know that you could do, that those possibilities are there.

Here's a gate I saw, and photographed, in Tanzania.  There's nothing special about it, but a world of mysterious possibility (for me, anyway) if you were to pass through:

When it comes to the gates that are really barriers, it occurs to me that they are barriers in both directions, sadly. It isn't just that we can't look in, but also that the person inside won't look out. I am fascinated and thrilled by the possibilities of going from here to there, from there to here, of exchanging and discovering and befriending - and, I suppose, of personal refreshment;  and I am equally saddened by the mindset that says "No" to what's out there and that has no room and makes no time for the challenges and delights of the wider world, of difference and discovery, of relationship, debate and conversation.

Life is for living, and to do that you surely have to cross your bridges, and open and pass through your gates, and refuse to be trapped behind barriers and fences, particularly the ones you erect yourself.