Not Everything Needs to be Fixed

I think about what I’m going to do tomorrow. That’s as far as I go.

And old things? Things that are done? I just leave them where they are. Eventually they fall over and become part of the earth, artifacts for future explorers.

Take this gate. Its partner fell over in a storm several years ago. When both parts of the gate were healthy and straight, they held up a sign made of small branches that read “Big Water.” Constructed by the previous owner of our beach house, the gate and sign were his statement. He was a big man with a big gate and a big sign. But so what? The wind still did him in.

The other half of the gate lays in the tall grass; it’s already started its disintegration. Years from now, the wood will have soaked into the earth, the rusty hinge mostly buried by years of shifting sand. A little girl will pull the hinge out of the sand and show her dad. “I think there used to be a gate here,” she’ll say.

And she’ll be right. There once was a gate but now it’s gone.