The sign said it wasn’t open. But something about the gate made me stop.
It wasn’t locked.
Just leaned. The kind of closed that meant, “Not today,” not “Never.”
I didn’t try to go in. I just stood there —
watching how the sun made the floor behind the gate glow.
There were shoes outside the door.
Fresh incense still curling in the breeze. A kettle resting on the step.
Someone had been there. Maybe still was.
And though I couldn’t enter,
I felt like the temple had already let me in —
in the way my shoulders dropped.
In the way my thoughts quieted.
I walked away slowly. Not with disappointment. But with the sense that some places are always open —
just not always to the feet.
Sometimes, they open to the part of you that knows how to stand still.