Category: inspiration

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Poetry in Pictures

Assignment:  Write a post that builds on one of the comments you left yesterday.

After visiting several blogs, one really stood out for me.  Spiritual Dragonfly shared a post called The Beauty of the Abandoned and Forgotten.  She opened with this quote (and I liked it):

“What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff which despite the light of progress and all that, still vanishes every day like shadows at noon, goings unheralded, passings unourned, well, you get the drift.”    ~Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves~

The title, The Beauty of the Abandoned and Forgotten, initially caught my attention but the photos stirred my imagination.  I love abandoned things and forgotten places.  It’s like they are waiting to be found, wanting to share their stories. When I saw the first picture, an ivy covered door, the beginnings of a story tickled my brain:

     Theodore Harding was tired – tired of eating beans, of sweeping the mill floors, and wearing a thread-bare coat…

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Back Roads, Old Buildings & Inspiration

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Old_Gas_Pump.jpg
Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Old_Gas_Pump.jpg

Years ago, my husband and I pulled out a map, closed our eyes and randomly placed our fingers on a spot.  That spot was to be our weekend destination.  We loaded up our young son and off we went.  The only stipulations – no interstates and no national food chains.  This became the best weekend getaway ever!

We took time to stop at road side stands.  We visited a small town that time forgot.  If you can imagine old-time gas pumps and 5¢ candies in glass jars… It was wonderful and nostalgic and so small town America.

Freewill Baptist Church, Sneads Ferry, NC
Freewill Baptist Church,
Sneads Ferry, NC

I love small towns.  I love driving back roads, looking at old churches, abandoned barns and finding the occasional surprise.

There is something about old things that speak to me.  I wonder at the stories they would tell, the memories they would share – if they could talk.  I think back to my grandparents – how hard they had to work to support their families – sharecropping, laboring in the tobacco fields, working in the laundry.  Well, three of them anyway. One chose to make a living as a bootlegger – only he seemed to drink more than he sold…

One of those little surprises - a boat in the woods
One of those little surprises – a boat in the woods

Some people will triumph; others will fail.  And they leave behind them the ghosts of what was and what might have been.  I think it’s those ghosts, those wisps of memory, that draw me to by-gone places.

Those aging buildings, those forgotten places, tickle my imagination.  I see the spirit of a young woman pacing the front porch waiting for her lover to come home.  I hear the laughter of children as they splash in the shallows of a near by river.  I smell the perfumed air that announces the arrival of a fairy prince.  And if I’m lucky, a new character might just introduce herself…

So – What inspires you?

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