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| Portmeirion, UK |
In Diana Wynne Jones' novel Howl's Moving Castle, the wizard Howl has a magical door. Even though his castle roves the land of Ingary, he's not limited by his home's current location. With a twist of the knob, he can push open the door, and step out into the village of Market Chipping, the seaside town of Porthaven, the capital city of Kingsbury, or even his childhood hometown in Wales.
Although Diana Wynne Jones was born in London, England, she was evacuated to Wales during World War II. Like wizard Howl, she could call that part of the United Kingdom (UK) home. Perhaps Howl's ability to visit his hometown whenever he wished bespoke Wynne's love for the land of her youth.
If so, it would seem that, like Wales, doorways also held a special magic for her. Ordinary doorways separate a home from the street or the garden. In an interview in the back of her novel, she mentioned that she usually kept interior doors in her home open, just to prevent another place turning up on the other side of them.
No place is that more likely to occur than in the Welsh village of Portmeirion in Jones' beloved Wales. Sir Clough Williams-Ellis designed the village so that every possible viewpoint could present a strikingly different scene. It remains a village that invites photographers, filmmakers, and artists to share his colorful and evocative vistas with the rest of the world.
If I had a front door like the wizard Howl, I would love to adjust the knob and return to the idyllic Welsh village of Portmeirion. But for now, I think it best to adopt Diana Wynne Jones' view on doors. Every time I go outside, I step into a place in which anything is possible.
A world in which I can make anything happen.
Dragon Dave
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