Don’t we all
wonder, as we pass by, what history is writ in the sagging shutters, the
peeling paint, the windows with their sightless panes neither lit from within
nor turned to the sun---don’t we wish we knew that story? Don’t we muse and speculate, as we measure
out past days in our minds, what family must have blinked into the day and
settled into sleep for countless years between those walls? All the What Ifs and What Mights, sifted
though our own memories and filtered through our own lenses of Time---I can see
and hear and feel those days and childhood shouts and breathless runs through
the grass, those white-hot kitchen days of canning and cooking, those evenings on the porch as the night drew on.
I’ve just been
privileged to read and enjoy just such a story about a deserted old house, for
my friend Debbi of her own FRONT PORCH has brought its days and occupants and
occupations to brilliant light, just from her imagination and photos of the
languish of its planks and roof, seeing into its past through the
veil of droops and weeds and rust. I
hope you’ll go and have a look---that girl knows her way around Charleston
I am always just entranced by old houses! I can visualize a mom with hair blowing about her face pegging clothes on the line as the kids play around her feet. I can smell the smoke in the air as the fire is built up to take the chill off the house in the early morning hours and the old fashioned percolator throwing its scent in the air. Loved this piece, Rachel.
ReplyDeleteHeaded over to visit your friend. xo Diana
ps. Pop by my blog to say a little prayer for my SIL, Jason, if you have a moment.
I just loved this because I think the same things. I look at an old house and think of how many people have passed through it. Were they happy? Were they hiding hurts so that the world wouldn't see them? There must have been some laughter. I imagine the children looking out the window at the falling snow or rushing through the doors to play in the yard as the spring breezes blow. My history professor told me I should be a sociologist since I love to learn about people. All people and all times of history.
ReplyDeleteLoved this piece, Rachel.
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I am SO SO SO GLAD you enjoyed this post about the old falling-down house!! tHANK YOU FOR FEATURING ME LIKE THIS!!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful post, Rachel and so was Debbi's! It reminds me of that lovely, but sad, old house we saw in Metamora when we visited Batesville with you.
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