Back stage

Any building has a back door as well as a front door. It doesn't have a welcome mat on which to wipe your feet or a chime to greet you. It's not adorned with flower pots, numbers and the name of the resident. The back door is for the tradesmen, the peddler of goods, the kitchen hand. It is purely functional. Back doors don't encourage us to enter. They suggest austerity and defensiveness. They are secure. A deterrent to the passer by. Shapeless forms in a solid defense. Abrupt frames with little indication of what lay beyond. There is no path to guide us, no light to illuminate the way. Just a door in a wall. Yet we all have one; a back door. It's the other place. The one we use more often than not. It's the familiar place of home and work. We let the dog out in the morning, bring the groceries in, enter the garden, attend to the refuse, find our refuge, take our friends, leave open when we are home, secure at night for the safety of those within.
'Have you locked the back door?' is a catch cry of any neighborhood in the late of any evening, before we settle to our slumber.
It is our guardian.