They are out looking for a house to buy. I’m driving. We follow the realtor and stop in front of a little house tucked into the corner of a big corner lot. It looks like a doll’s house, dwarfed by the huge old trees that surround it on two sides. “A gnome-home,” my son-in-law comments. Later, we laugh about how they can dress it up each Hallowe’en: one year a baby’s block; the next year one of a set of dice; next, a Rubik’s cube. Later, I discover it’s probably some sort of cross between “biscuit box” and “four square” architecture. It was built in the 1920s, empty for a while, and a builder recently bought it and completely renovated it.
The houses that surround it are twice as imposing, twice as large, and architecturally more complex. The little house looks like a spruced-up orphan, undersized and ignored, waiting — shyly in a corner, alone among all its more obviously desireable peers — to be adopted by just the right people who could appreciate its uniqueness.
Inside, it’s all new and airy — bright even on this cloudy day. Hardwood floors. Two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. They would need to add on another room. The builder/renovator assumed that would be the case and is prepared to work with them. The price is low enough. The yard is big — room for kids to congregate and play, vegetables to grow, flowers to flourish. It will take time and nurturning. They have plenty of that.
The orphaned little house on the corner will soon be a home again.

It’s all in how you look at things.