This is my favorite old farmhouse. I always stop and take its picture as I travel west on the road that goes through Valentine, Nebraska. Standing on the edge of this lonely place, imagining the lives once lived there, it's easy, from a distance, to romanticize what I see, but I know life in such circumstances can often be very difficult. Seen in the middle of winter, it comes close to defining desolation. In my heart, this is what I see:
warm summer nights, with a multitude of crickets singing in the dark, reminding the childless couple inside that they are not alone. In the fall, jars are sealed and placed in the pantry: green beans, sweet corn, peas and pickles, to be opened when the root cellar is almost empty with summer still a long way off. On winter evenings, they read Emerson by lamplight as an aria from La Traviata sails around and around on the green felt of the aging Victrola. On certain nights, after the house has fallen quiet, she walks outside and watches as each star takes its place across the vast night sky. And every spring, when it feels like the wind might never stop blowing, it's then she looks out at the endless rolling hills and remembers the ocean.
What it looks like in winter and a song by Patsy: teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2012/01/next-of-kin-to-wayward-wind.html
And the road that leads you there:
The stories that could be told by this old dwelling! In my belief system time is not linear, so when we encounter something from the past we get a glimpse of all that it ever was in one instant. Our minds capture this, but do not decipher this information well, except for a few lucky ones. You are one of the lucky ones.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe it to be linear, either, and agree with you. It's amazing what can happen when we allow "time" to be "suspended" and let feelings and images come through. I'm not sure if it's "lucky" or just willing. :) Thank you, Bill.
DeleteWhat a beautiful imagining. The thing is, it's happened in so many places during so many different time frames, the reverberation is everywhere, and you captured it perfectly. Thank you, Teresa.
ReplyDelete"The reverberation is everywhere." I think so, too. Thanks, DJan.
DeleteA beautiful post. I sometimes wonder what the lives of these settlers were like. I didn't realise what they were facing, until I wnet to the US and saw al the open space there. Something we can't really conceive of in most European countries and certainly not in England. There's usually SOMEONE within a day's hike!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jenny. We do have a great deal of open space still, especially so in the west. I find it very inviting.
DeleteAnd to think all the places left like this one all over the country and all those lost forever were at one time viable. Productive and sustaining. There could have been more survivors but a different path was chosen.
ReplyDeleteSo many chose to leave farm life behind and seek a life elsewhere. It certainly was what my older siblings chose. The idea of seeking your fortune in a city was rampant, and so many farms stand empty now. They make nice photo opps, if you can find one without No Trespassing signs, but I'd like it much more if they were still viable.
DeleteBeautiful post...!!! My mind drifts when I see these homes. I imagine the lives, too. Mostly, tho, I feel the isolation, a loneliness. Your picture of the road that gets you there...ooh my, great picture!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lynn. There's something about the sense of isolation and loneliness that, although I don't think I'd want to choose it for a way of life, it might be a very interesting experiment in living for a while. I am drawn to it for some reason. Love those rolling hills.
DeleteHello Teresa:
ReplyDeleteThe farmhouse does take on a completely different feel in summer and winter. What appears on a sunny day to be a house free of disturbance from the hurly burly of the modern world has an intense feeling of loneliness in its wintry garb.
There are surely so many stories that this house can tell and your account is so very atmospheric.
My story is just mine. Another could be formed from a different perspective. That's its beauty, perhaps. Thank you.
DeleteYou do have to wonder about the people who chose to live in what seems to some a desolate landscape. But I knew some folks who lived in a place like that in eastern Montana. They loved it so much. To them it was wild and free and beautiful. When I was with them, I could feel it, too, even though I was more at home in the mountains than on the plains.
ReplyDeleteSome people are very drawn to those wide open spaces. It's where they're comfortable. I have a friend who lives in ND after growing up in Minn, who could not imagine returning here, but feels claustrophobic among so many trees. One of the things I loved about living in Santa Fe was being surrounded by so many mountain ranges. Such beauty.
DeleteAs usual, I love this post. It serves a reminder, that not only in peaceful farmhouse settings, but all over the world, everywhere, there are beautiful, sad, triumphant, gentle, inspiring stories to be told and never told. We are each a part of the other, remote, and seemingly with nothing in common at times, but we all have our music and our nourishment and the breath taking night sky.
ReplyDeleteAll over the world stories of people's lives are still present and we do respond to the same things, as you so beautifully stated. These layers of life intrigue me. Thank you!
DeleteThe place looks so lonely and uninviting. I can't help but wonder why there are no trees. Is this the area where there is just a thin layer of soil over sand dunes?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is sand hill country. I find it inviting even in its loneliness. But, not where I would choose to live my life, probably.
DeleteI like how this area appeals to you, I was just up there 2 weeks ago . I worked at a biological station years back with the Nature Conservacy and fell in love with an old home similar to this that was up for rent. I just couldn't figure out how to survive in the middle of nowhere.I sat in the home everyday and tried to imagine the lives of all who had lived there.It had a piano left behind and it was fun to tickle the ivories after a hard day out in the field.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds inviting. Playing a piano in one of these old farmhouses is a wonderful image and idea. I love it.
DeleteI read both posts, and loved them. I could have stayed awhile in the winter scene. We are having hot and muggy weather here.
ReplyDeleteThere is something about an old someplace that sets fire to the imagination of certain people. I see that we are sisters in that feeling. Yesterday, I posted a shot of a hill I check out every time we pass through that part of the state.
Thanks for a very good read!
Thank you, Sandy, for taking the time to read the other, too. Hot and muggy here, too. Not to mention buggy. :)
DeleteIt's fun and interesting to imagine what is, or might have been. We all have so many similar feelings and responses once we open ourselves to the possibilities. I'm glad to know these things speak to you, also. I enjoyed seeing your green, rocky hillside. Traveling down Highway #1 was a highlight on one of my trips to Maine. It felt familiar to me in ways I can't explain.
Lovely visions for your favorite house. A home reflects back to us our imagined feelings. Nice post -- barbara
ReplyDeleteThank you, Barbara!
DeleteYour heart paints such an evocative picture, Teresa, and your words take me into another place. The crickets have started their song here already. What a comforting thought for the wife of your house that she is not alone. I, too, like to imagine the lives being led in houses along the roads I travel.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's that we are all connected on the deepest and highest level that makes these imaginings so intriguing. It's one of my favorite parts of traveling, to feel the areas I go through and what life is like among the people who inhabit it. Thanks, Penny.
DeleteThis beautiful post is more confirmation of the fact that this is one of the best spots on the web. You should write a book.
ReplyDeleteWow. That is so kind of you, Bill. I'm very grateful for your words of encouragement. We shall see....
Delete"they are not alone."
ReplyDeleteBeautiful. Beautiful and true =]
You have the ability to see the heart of something, a gift that serves you well as a writer. Thank you, t.
DeleteI also sometimes visualize what life was like in a place like this. Usually old houses start the process for me. I would just love to know, and yet...
ReplyDeleteI suppose it's the not-knowing for certain that opens the door to all sorts of possibilities. And, perhaps, it's an instantaneous Knowing that we receive in a way that's almost impossible to articulate. Either way, I enjoy it.
DeleteWow. I can see how this place inspires you to wonder, imagine, and write.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mary!
DeleteThank you for a beautiful post, Teresa.
ReplyDeleteIt's a very interesting place. It looks like there is enough grazing for the cattle, but the family in the house - if there is one - must have a tough life. There is no garden, the trees are miserable, the roof on the house is falling down, the terasse looks like it's without windows. It is obvious there is no shelter for the wind. The house was probably a pretty house from the beginning. There is a story. I understand why you take a photo of this place when you are passing.
I like your imagination about the woman who walks out under the stars and remembers the ocean.
Grethe ´)
Hi Buddy! wruff!
Hi Grethe, The house has been abandoned for many years. I first took its picture back in the early 1990's and it looked like it had been abandoned then for a good long while. It also looks as if it was a rather nice home at one time. I'm sure they attempted a garden, but it can't have been easy with the sandy soil. Plenty of manure for composting, though! :) It's the sense of isolation within that landscape that always draws me in for a closer look. I like just standing there and feeling what that feels like.
DeleteBuddy sends his regards! :)
I suppose I have a similar farmhouse - one I photograph many times in many seasons and many weathers as I pass it. Now you have set my imagination in motion - what lives were lived there?
ReplyDeleteIt's very enjoyable, in an odd way, to get a sense of what was. The threads that connect us become more visible.
Deleteoh my...that line about the ocean
ReplyDeleteperfect
perfect flash fiction
I've seen the term, but wasn't certain of its meaning, but I do thank you. I'm rather partial to that line myself, as it just showed up and I was there to write it down. :)
DeleteThanks so much for stopping by, Suz.
Dear Teresa, thank you for linking us to the winter photo. Your poem is a presence too. Peace.
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear heart.
DeleteNice post Teresa. Often times when I am driving through rural areas I will see an ancient farmhouse with well-aged grey clapboards, windows all broken, porch about to cave in, grass and weeds waist high and a barn that looks about in the same condition. I know that at one time that house and barn was the home of a hard working, proud family and more than likely families. I so want that house to speak of its past.
ReplyDeleteSteven, I am so glad you came by to read this post. I had a feeling you appreciate these old farmsteads, as I do. Thanks for the nice comment.
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