The one that almost got away

I’d come for the lighthouse and almost missed it. What actually stopped me was the weeds — a scruffy, sunlit tangle of them doing all the living, while the famous tower stood politely in the back, half-asleep in the haze.

It felt like the kind of thing Aunt Go would notice and the guidebooks wouldn’t. So I sat down in the grass and let the lighthouse be the small thing for once.

“A small reversal: the monument waiting at the back, the weeds running the show up front. Can I belong somewhere without being the tallest thing in it?”

— more Aunt Go’s question than mine, but I borrowed it for the walk home.