Rauw

Things used to be different. The car would drive alongside the house, all the way to a garage in the back. That garage sat halfway into the garden. The side yard? Paved, just to be driven on. But things have changed. Priorities have shifted. Getting the car to the back no longer seems that important. The driveway is broken up and planted. The garage gets a second life.

A small house. A garden shed, but not quite. Perhaps more a gardened house. A partially dismantled structure. So open in front that it’s almost outside. Plants climb and lean to form a natural curtain. Behind it, a modest interior. Just enough room for a home in miniature: a kitchen, a place to sit, a bed beneath the ridge beam. Further still, the structure dissolves again. It becomes a canopy. When it rains, curved lines of water run from its edge. The ground bursts open in green and water. It’s a place for the senses. For raw, unfiltered experience. Everything is warm and rough to the touch. The air smells of drying herbs. Rain is allowed to show itself, just like the sun. We hear the wind. We hear the bees. Nothing in between. Just presence. A kingfisher hesitates. A toad croaks.