When the fence was new and shiny

Borders close to home
London, ON
November 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram

We’re surrounded by things we never have the patience to observe more closely.

Like the simple chain link fence beside our house. The old one had gotten, shall we say, rusty. Wires stuck out of it at odd angles, and I worried about the dog catching an edge on something nasty. So along came the friendly fence people to install a shiny new one.

As evidence of how trivial our pandemic existence has become, this became a bit of a thing for me. I marked the day on my calendar, and when all the work was done, I bounced outside like a kid on Christmas (oops, Chanukah) to take in their handiwork.

I've written before about my need to take pictures of things when they're brand spanking new. I'm not sure how this scene would have changed after another day or two, but in my mind it needed to be recorded the day it was installed.

So there I stood with my DSLR in the fading evening light, taking artsy photos of a chain link fence to the amusement of neighbors and passers-by alike.

This may only be a fence, a trivial part of the landscape, an easily ignored fixture that ultimately means little to most. But it means something to me, a marker, of sorts, that spends most of its existence well below most people's radar. Yet when we think about radar, it's entirely our call re. how high or low that threshold gets set.

So mine's a little different than the norm. Not the first time I've been unconventional. Probably not the last, either.

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