1. Threshold

My front door is wide. So wide, the screen/storm door in front of Hickory the cat there? Cost more than four months of Maeve's preschool tuition. I use that statistic a lot when the girls let it bang shut on each other. Wide enough that all three cats, if they choose to cooperate, can sit and view the outdoors. Dara the geriatric rottweiler mix usually hovers behind them, waiting for the UPS man to bring her a biscuit. Or just to bark at every other living creature that comes within earshot.

Out my door, I see Jim's house. Our front doors look straight out at each other, although our houses aren't exactly mirror images. I've lived here long enough, it was Mary's house first. And then that weird couple from New York moved in. Now it's Jim's, with his wife and his kids and his hawaiian shirts and dog and sandbox in the back of the truck. Next door to him, the white stone house? That's Doug's place. Independently wealthy man of mystery Doug. Not much to view there. Jim's house has more going on.

Hickory and Dara may watch for juncos and dogwalkers, but I've looked out this door at many things: the badges of FBI and Secret Service agents; homeless men with stolen goods to sell me; neighbors bearing meals after babies are born. I watch the sweetgum tree turn yellow and the black oak turn brown. Kids run up and down the sidewalk while folks east of us walk past on their way to the park.

I like the view.