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Friday, January 20, 2017

A Perfectly Good House

My  Grandma Eva liked to take drives to look at the countryside.   As we would pass an abandoned house, she would cluck her tongue (something I have never been able to quite perfect like she did) and say, "A perfectly good house ...."   We'd all laugh at her comment as we looked at some falling down structure only inhabitable by mice, vermin and who-knows-what.

She wasn't saying this was a great house now.  But what she meant was that this was once a home.  What happened?  How did this house go from a place where people cared to now?   Once there was a yard and maybe flowers bloomed here in the spring.   Sometimes we could see that there was an old but still blooming rose bush.   Who planted it?   What were their dreams?

Remnants of a clothes line.  Did white sheets used to blow and billow in the wind?   Did the housewife here hold a clothespin in her mouth as she pinned the sheets to the line?  Did her children run up and down between the sheets pretending it was their castle or fort?

If you look closely you might see an outline of a garden...maybe just a fence or traces that this patch of land had been tilled.  There might be a canning jar in the rubble of the house--proof that the family had enjoyed the summer's bounty.

Was that the dining room window? Tattered bits of flowered fabric flutter at the window.   Who wanted this bit of pretty? Did someone stand at the door and watch the sunrise?  Who walked down the path to the mailbox?

What happened?  Did the children grow up and move away?  Or were there no children ever here to look after those that were left?  Was the work gone and the family just packed up and moved on?  What lives were lived here?

A perfectly good house.

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 In honor of my Grandma Eva, I am creating an on-going series of photographs called "A Perfectly Good House."   My hope is that through my photographs and digital art, I can once again be able to make these homes have a bit of beauty that reaches out to touch you and make you wonder ..."a perfectly good house...."






1 comment:

  1. This is such a lovely memory and story! I can see everything so clearly through your descriptions. I love the idea of the series!

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