Convergences in life that harmonize with our memories make us aware of the connections between all things in Daydreaming on the Porch
- Jan. 2, 2023, 3:55 a.m.
- |
- Public
…It’s not as if I believe that everything works together to bring us to a particular predestined point. But I do believe that everything we experience can be seen as related, if we are open to something beyond our original intentions and are paying attention to the myriad possibilities. All the walks I’ve taken, all the experiences I’ve had, including the devastating ones, are part of who I am. Insofar as I have the capacity to take another walk, or to repsond with a whole heart to the beauty of the world, or to engage with a person who has a different perspective, then there is something in life that I can confirm…
John Elder,
Interview in The Sun, June 2013
Statements such as the above really resonate with me as I get older and am more than ever conscious of the passage of time. At many different stages of my life, I have looked back and tried to put into a larger perspective, so to speak, the sum total of my experiences up to that point, but at 71 this exercise seems to take on a new sense of poignancy, if not urgency.
How many Springs do I have left to enjoy the beauty of the azaleas in bloom, or in which to smell the memory-intoxicating fragrance of legustrums or gardenias? Grateful I am indeed that I can still appreciate the beauty of these things, the power of the aesthetic as well as the sensory experience they represent and provide.
When you can do this, there is affirmation of life in its totality. When I can enjoy the excitement of the discovery on a back road way out in the middle of nowhere of a perfectly intact abandoned farmstead and photograph it as I did similar subjects and scenes 40 years ago in another part of rural South Carolina, then I am again aware that all my experiences are related, that they are integrally part of who I am today and who I was as a young man 50 years ago just starting out in life.
Life is whole, connected. I am aware of this now whenever I relive events from that past. Memory is a precious gift.
An abandoned farmstead in rural South Carolina, discovered and photographed in 2013:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/camas/3X9D498KD2
These are iconic rural scenes for me. The cumulative stories of generations of farm families lie in ghostly repose in these weathered old structures — empty, baking in the Southern summer sun, whispering secrets to a curious and fascinated passerby with a camera, heading home, who just happened to look to the side out the window of his car and spotted that house, barn and several other out buildings, off a little distance on a side road. If he had not turned his gaze to the left at that exact moment, the farmstead would have been lost to him forever.
Ten years later, I remember my first glimpse of that farm just as clearly as I remember first seeing the big country house and abandoned railroad depot in a tiny town not far out in the country from where my aunt lived. That was in 1973. I have pictures of that old house, and I think of the railroad depot. But I was equally excited to come upon and photograph both of those vanishing remnants of rural life in South Carolina, 40 years apart, the first time as a young man just starting out in life, inquisitive and ready to explore a world so different from his origins, and then, those decades later, a much older man whose enthusiasm for exploring and photographing such places has never dimmed. It never will disappear.
Side porch of the old house I photographed in 1973. In those days long before digital cameras, all my photography was in black and white, and I developed and printed the picture’s in a friend’s darkroom.
Sleepy-Eyed John ⋅ January 02, 2023
Hmmmm. Amazing to me they've just sat there.
Oswego Sleepy-Eyed John ⋅ January 04, 2023
That was about 10 years ago, so I would imagine those old structures are getting to be in pretty bad shape. I’d go back there to try to find out what they look like now, but I doubt I could find the place. I have an idea which road it’s off, however! They may be enough.
Sleepy-Eyed John Oswego ⋅ January 04, 2023
Adventure time!
Oswego Sleepy-Eyed John ⋅ January 04, 2023
Indeed!
Sleepy-Eyed John Oswego ⋅ January 04, 2023
Do it!!!!!
mcbee ⋅ January 02, 2023
The conversations that probably took place in those two chairs!
Oswego mcbee ⋅ January 03, 2023
I’ve wondered that myself. Can’t you picture it?
ConnieK ⋅ January 02, 2023
That farmhouse has live edge siding. Did you notice? The person who built this house knew his carpentry. Live edge takes talent and experience. Loved the tree, too.
Oswego ConnieK ⋅ January 04, 2023
I had no idea. Thanks for pointing that out! 😌
Lady of the Bann ⋅ January 03, 2023
In the countryside of northern Ireland we see many abandoned cottages and farms. Stone construction and different stages of abandon. I often wonder about the lives of people who lived there.
The are a couple of places that have preserved and renovated the homes. The one in Omagh, you can walk around, go in the cottage and be greeted by an old lady dressed in clothes of the time. See her making soda bread or weaten bread and tasting it. Smelling the peat fires and visiting the bedrooms, still laid out with their lumpy quilts and bed pans.
You walk up the lane and go passed old shops and walk onto a mock up ships,like many young people boarded to get to America. Then out the other side in the New World.
How life was different then. Whole families living in two rooms. The water pump outside. No bathroom. The cottage my stepdad left me was originally like that. No foundations. Mud floors. A ladder up to the sleeping area in the roofspace.
Oswego Lady of the Bann ⋅ January 04, 2023
That’s a fascinating description. Would love to visit that place, and both Irelands some day. I always wonder what the families’ lives were like who lived in those now long-abandoned houses.
Newzlady ⋅ January 03, 2023
That farmstead is irresistible. I want to explore!
Oswego Newzlady ⋅ January 04, 2023
I just looked at the photos again. I’d love to go back and see what’s left of the place, but not sure I could find it. I think I could retrace the rural highways to get there, but that’s a big “if.”