Deepwater, in black and white

Walking through my childhood neighborhood always triggers mixed feelings...I'm flooded by memories, but the wear and tear of the years can't be disguised by memories turned rosy, filtered by time...

Where you just see a boarded up, run down house, I see myself telling jokes with my first best friend Ricky in the courtyard (before the faux Spanish re-do) and reading "The Little House" for the very first time in his mom's beauty shop (the center section)...
She gave me the book; I still have it. I treasure it and the memory.
But as much as I'd like to, I can't ignore the boarded windows. The emptiness. The neglect. And it makes me sad.

That's the story of Deepwater, and why I chose to post these photos in black and white; as I walked, I saw the neighborhood through two sets of eyes, past and present...

For me, the next two photos do a good job of depicting Deepwater as it is right now, a neighborhood straddling the past and the present..
...the first, an empty lot where the childhood home of my friend Brad once stood...

...and the second, a brand new picket fence bordering a sidewalk that has felt the weight of children's feet for almost 60 years...

Such a contrast, and the first one breaks my heart. But I feel that together they depict, more than anything, that this is a neighborhood in transition...faded in spots...perhaps even dead in spots,  but overall still clinging to life, refusing to give in to time.

While some houses, like Brad's and Ricky's, are boarded up or torn down, others have been given facelifts and corrective surgery, taking decades off of their appearance; children still ride their bikes, play basketball, walk to school...creating their own Deepwater memories.

For that, I am grateful.

Barbed Wire and Weathered Posts

Strands of barbed wire, like strands of time.

Bite me in the leg.

Strands of life.

Linking us all to one another. 

Family, friends.

Connecting, supporting, guarding...

(Forgive me if you saw these on Long Hollow, but barbed wire and weathered cedar posts are some of my favorite subjects. I wanted to include them on this site, too!)

Light

My eye is drawn to sunlight. 

When I walk in the mornings, I notice it reaching into the Hollow, chasing the shadows away.

In the woods, I love how it works its way in, shining tiny spotlights on a tree, a weed, a blade of grass, 

and dances on ripples in the water.

The sun is the epitome of benevolence – 

it is lifegiving and warmthgiving and happinessgiving, 

and to it we owe our thanksgiving.

~ Jessi Lane Adams

Light, God's eldest daughter... 

~Thomas Fuller

Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space. 

It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe.  

It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished. 

~Michael Strassfeld

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.  

~Maori Proverb

The sun is nature's Prozac.  

~Astrid Alauda

The windows of my soul I throw

Wide open to the sun.

~John Greenleaf Whittier

Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair...  

~Susan Polis Shutz

In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. 

~Aaron Rose

When my heart is heavy, the sun helps make it light. 

~Astrid Alauda

No matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.

  ~Terry Pratchett

I think you might dispense with half your doctors if you would only consult Dr. Sun more.  

~Henry Ward Beecher

Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen.  Keep in the sunlight.  

~Benjamin Franklin

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, 

and thanks to a benevolent arrangement 

the greater part of life is sunshine. 
~Thomas Jefferson

From within or from behind

a light shines 

through us 

upon things

and makes us aware

that we are nothing

but the light

is all

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

Weekends are for Walking

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

To-do lists were forgotten this past weekend.

The sunshine called me and I answered, heading for the woods
 and the wonder to be found there...

Follow me through the woods to a damselfly-covered pond,
 along a dry creek bed lined with ancient cedars,
and back up into the sunshine where butterflies feast on tiny yellow buds.