I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
That was Emily Dickinson. The two pictures made me think of the gardinels I talked about a while back -- but when I posted them, Miss Emily's poem came to mind. (You know, she was a very strange lady.) I imagined these old buildings speaking to each other. (Okay, so maybe I'm strange too.)
Now, for something completely different -- and for those who don't get my newsletter -- check out this.
Now, for something completely different -- and for those who don't get my newsletter -- check out this.
14 comments:
I am a sucker for old abandoned houses. I really feel for them and often wonder who built them, who lived there over the years and why where they just left?
When we looked for property way back when, I would see a neat old house, abandoned, and ask the realtor about it and usually the answer was, "Oh that's in so and so's family but they don't want to sell it and most likely no family members will ever move into it". That broke my heart, but so it goes.
That was so much fun to read,
thank you! I thought I have read all of Emily's poems, but that one was new to me (maybe thanks to my leeking memory? No matter!).
Hey, Pat, I have (mentally) restored, refurbished, and redecorated many an old house. If I had unlimited money, it would be my hobby.
Merisi -- I had to check to make sure that was an Emily poem -- it seems a bit different -- but it is!
I have always been a "if walls could talk " person. I once wrote a country song " The Last Place She Loved Me" about an old house I saw being torn down in Nashville.
I enjoyed the Newsletter and the "goofed" article. The girl and I tried to get in someones elses car a while back, she noticed the tire rims were different before we set off any alarms! HA!
Well, you know if walls could speak...Some walls have ears, you know! Old cupboards often contain skeletons, so you can never tell what's hidden under the floorboards. These houses are abandoned for a reason!
Love the poem and the old houses. Old houses just draw me in. I hate to see them rotting away. At first I thought you were giving us another gag, saying that was an Emily Dickeson's poem. I was laughing at your comments even, saying, sure, sure. The reason? When I read the poem, I read that last word as "blog", not BOG! Good grief. It's obvious I need more coffee on this Monday morning!
Tammy
Me, too. (heehee, just kidding)
They both emit such historical and emotional energies. Wonderful.
Carol -- I hoo-hawed out loud over that article!
Reader Wil - You're thinking like a mystery writer now!
Tammy and Willow -- I almost typed blog and then I thought about how well the poem would work that way (on the Internet, no one knows you're a dog kind of thing) but decided to go with the houses I'd already posted. But there's another blog post there for sure!
Your pictures reminded me of the houses that I've observed as I’ve traveled the same roads across Virginia and North Carolina for half a century to visit family and friends. It is amazing how differently a structure seems to change once the life of a family is not longer within it. Some decay rapidly and are gone in a matter of a few years. Others are still there after a half-century.
I like to think that how long an abandoned structure remains depends on the family that lived in it. The aromas, sounds, and touches of everyday living from a strong and happy family imbue it with a strength that keeps it alive longer than the materials of construction.
Bo Parker
That's a very lovely Ray Bradbury-ish sort of a thought, Bo!
I had a friend in first grade who lived in the house in the second pic. They moved after that, and I don't think anyone ever lived there again. I've always thought it looked so lonesome. Gosh, I don't even want to think about how many years ago that was....
Makes you wonder what might have happened . . .
I think it belongs to the folks who live across the road -- someone keeps the grass mowed and tends a nice garden in the back.
I used to pass a house that looked much like these on my drive to work. After seeing it continue to deteriorate over ten years of my commute, I watched restoration proceed for a year. The newly restored house went on sale with a open house to lure in buyers. Though not in the market, I went just to see if I could learn the story of the house.
It was a family homestead, left to a nephew who didn't want it but never sold it. So it sat abandoned for about 40 years. Apparently upon the death of that owner, the heir decided to fix it up and sell it.
Sad to me to think that it left the family, but it sold, for a pretty penny if they got anywhere near the asking price. It was felt good after that to see lights shining in the old house as I went by the in the mornings, like the eyes of the house reflecting it's new life.
Lynne in GA
There are a few old houses that I too keep an eye on. There was one that belonged to two elderly ladies and they kept it in tip top shape. Time passed; I guess they got older or died,(brilliant logic, Vicki) but the house passed into the hands of a large family who in the past ten or fifteen years have totally trashed it. I always hope the two ladies never saw it.
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