I like arches. I’ve been thinking about them–their sense of invitation and transition. The way they frame what’s ahead. I don’t mean famous arches like L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris or the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. but simple arches I’ve encountered.

This first one is created by trees meeting over a path to the dike I often walk, and just beyond it is View–of the bay, which is sometimes beautifully spread with water and sometimes, when the tide is low, less beautifully spread with mud.

The next is also local, also of greenery. Enter this portal and you’ll be in a peaceful, quiet Tsawwassen place of trees, flowers, and plants called The Secret Garden.

And I love detouring through this one on my way to the library. It’s structural, yes, between two parts of a condo building but leads to a large reflective pool with koi.

I have a few favourites from travels. First one is in Turkey, one arch opening to another. It seems both holy and mysterious. Second, somewhere in Europe, Freiburg I think (and don’t you just want to go through and around the corner to that street?) Third is in Central Park, New York. The ceiling nearly grabs all the attention but there, at the end, three arches, stairs, and light.

And as metaphor? In the ordinary, daily life? For me a book or story is like an arch that summons me into another place. The exercise of gratitude is an arch as frame around the day’s happenings. Any shift of thought or action that leads me toward a different, perhaps wondrous view or next steps is an arch to go through gladly.