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.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
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!)
Labels:
barbed wire,
cedar posts,
fences
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
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
Labels:
sunlight,
sunlight photography,
sunlight quotes
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
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.
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.
Labels:
butterflies,
damselflies,
nature photography
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