Thinking About a Gate

[thisnewday]

Lately, I've been thinking about a gate. One which doesn't exist, as yet. One which is needed between the end of the driveway and the fenced-in backyard.

Because, over the winter, a huge ice dam built up on the roof above the back corner of the house. And when spring came, and things began to thaw, it fell from the roof and shook the ground and quite completely destroyed the existing gate.

Now, I could easily buy a ready-made, tubular steel and chain-link gate. I could even save some money by re-using the undamaged hinges and latch. But the gate itself wouldn't really fit the opening, the ready-made ones are priced too high for what you get, and designing and building my own stuff is just something that I've always done. So I've been thinking about the one I might build.

The thing is, there's often a tool or other gadget that's needed to complete the project. And I've always justified that by either figuring it into the cost of the job or, if that didn't work, by saying that this was something I'd have for the rest of my life and would certainly use again.

But these days, at the age of 70, there's another certainty that increasingly weighs on the other side of the argument. The certainty that whatever I now acquire will be left to others to use, dispose of, or otherwise deal with.

And I would rather that what is left to them, from these latter days, were things that speak of the life and people that I once knew and what I learned, or wish I had learned, from them.

And so I think about a gate, the one I might build, and after that, the one which casts its inevitable shadow across the path ahead of me...

LPK
LiveJournal
4.27.2025 (a)

Comments

[rosegardenfae.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering about the relativity of our biological age and now i know, very close in that respect. I turn 70 in the fall, dependant, of course, on the whims of the Universe.

[olbuksings.livejournal.com]

The whims of the universe, yes. And our small beings, our small voices. Reaching, hoping to be heard. Thank you for letting me know that you hear...