Behind the Facade

For quite some time, I’ve found myself drawn to hidden places, the quiet places that exist behind the city’s polished storefronts and busy streets.

There is something magnetic about the backs of buildings, the narrow alleys, the small gardens tucked between walls. These corners are rarely on display. Often they are locked, overgrown, or half-forgotten. Yet they hold a different kind of beauty, one you have to look for.

While walking the streets, I notice moments most people pass by: a mother feeding her baby in a community garden, a couple sitting close together under a tree behind an apartment block, a single chair left out in the sun. Some of these places are striking, others rough and ordinary, but all of them carry a quiet magic, ugly and beautiful at the same time.

And what does this say about me? Maybe it’s that, more often than not, I choose to stay at the back myself, seeing the world from a different angle, looking for the places in people that no one else notices. I recognize myself in these hidden corners: a life that can feel locked, yet is open if you take the time to look.

I think this fascination began when I was a child. I would roam my neighborhood of modest 1950s houses, searching for secret spaces, backyards hidden by hedges, narrow side paths, small pockets of wonder.

Those explorations taught me that the truest stories are rarely in the spotlight. They live behind the fronts, waiting for someone willing to look past what the world presents first.