This morning my friend Sonya and I went to photograph this old farmstead that I drive by all the time - always telling myself one day I will stop. I usually drive by it on my way to South Bend, craning my head behind me the entire time to soak it in and observe it as I drive by. It was a grand place in it's day. And I've been longing to just get out of my car and wander... I have wanderlust, obviously... for barns. :) Well, today was that day. It.was.amazing. Freeing. Just to get away and explore - totally started my week off right! Sonya is just as investigative as I am and finds intrigue in wondering about the history of an old home like this. That's why I love her!! And while it was exciting to be a bunch of trespassers today - snooping around and trying to imagine what life was like on that land, or what the stories were as to why it was abandoned... it was SO hauntingly quiet other than the faint breeze and song birds. 50 some photos and two ticks later... I was ready to end the little jaunt for the day. {That's what I get for literally allowing myself to lay in the wild grass to get a shot of the side of the barn. Lol. I was NOT excited to find them on me LATE in the day. Neither had bit me, but I must admit, I screamed like a GIRL both times.} I am proud to scream like a girl incase there is any confusion as to whether this is meant to be an insulting remark towards myself. Lol.
Don't you just wonder though about who grew up here? The life there... what it must have been like living on that land. The children who played on the porch. The girl that had her first kiss in that barn. I should write romance novels. Ha. I sure have enough of an imagination when it comes to trying to figure out what a life meant to someone else back when.
As I told Sonya when we were there.. sometimes I wish photography wasn't such an obsession. :) But she reminded me that I have a pretty cool hobby. It helps pay my bills. {not the abandoned houses per say... but people like me that adore the forlorn homes and barns of the world and want to hire me b/c they now think I'm pretty cool.} Come on. It is pretty cool. I take on ticks for this stuff.
When daffodils grow in the entry way of a stone-gated farm, time has taken it's course. Someone needs to get out there and notice the beauty of the left behind. It may be left behind, but at least it's not forgotten. That's how I want to be when I am old. I may be unsightly to some. Abandoned. Ignored. But someone will come along and find beauty in my worn edges and will soak me in, leaving restored and inspired. Oh the parallels in life to growing old beautifully.
