A girl in a pretty white frock, her heel in the air, her hands on the top board of the gate at the end of the drive, lips puckered and leaning forward for her beau to kiss her before he rides off on his horse.

A kissing gate sounds very Gone With the Wind. Spanish moss would drip from trees overhead. The scent of jasmine would hang in the air. The path would be dusty and lined with wildflowers, and the girl and the beau both would turn away with smiles on their faces.

There is a kissing gate scene in Their Eyes Were Watching God. I remember the protagonist, Janie, standing under a tree of blooms by her husband’s fence by the dusty roadside, waiting for something — or someone — to come along and change her life. And one day he did. A man came along and kissed her over the fence, and that kiss changed the course of everything. *

Does anyone have a kissing gate anymore? It seems they are better suited to a life on foot rather than a life behind the wheel. I love the thought of them, though — the fresh air, the green grass, the earthy smell of a dirt path. A wooden gate to smooch over when you say goodbye until next time to your sweetheart.

*I could be remembering the kiss wrong — if he didn’t actually kiss her, Janie sure wanted him to.

Thank you Dapplegrey for the prompt, “kissing gate.”

For the month of November, I will be participating in NaBloPoMo and plan to publish every day of the month. Usually, I will publish a 10-minute free write, initiated by a prompt from my prompt box. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Follow along with the tag #NovemberDaily.