Saturday, March 19, 2011

My Strange Obsession

Since I was a little girl I have been fascinated with empty, decaying houses. Growing up in the Texas Panhandle, there were buildings of varying size standing out in the middle of the cotton or wheat fields. What happened to cause the owners to leave? Did they get rich and move to a brick house in town? Did the father leave and the mother and kids have to move in with grandparents? Did they leave all their furniture?

I have continued to ask these questions even more forcefully as I've aged and learned the weight of a mortgage and the responsibility of keeping a roof over my family's head. Many of these houses are a product of the dust bowl and the migration from farm life to the urban setting. Fire codes and county building inspectors are making sure there are fewer and fewer of these houses to catch my attention. Before they are entirely gone from the landscape, I'm trying to capture some of them on film. I've paired them with poetry that seems appropriate. My intent has been to use only poetry that the copyright has run out so I'm not stealing. I'm sharing them here on the blog but I eventually hope to find a way to publish the poetry and photos in a coffee table book. Let me know what you think.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While at times it seems like the world has become barbaric, sometimes we have the joy of seeing the opposite. My example is having a flat tire. I had a flat in the middle of nowhere New Mexico last week and it made me look back on all the flat tires of my life. Other than when my dad made me change each of the four tires on my first car so I would know how to do it when I had to (yes, all four) I have never changed a tire. In fact I have never done more than get out the spare without someone stopping to do it for me. I can remember about half a dozen flats, and each time a man between the ages of 19 and 60 ranging from poor to wealthy and dense to educated sometimes a stranger sometimes an acquaintance has stopped and changed it for me. Are flat tires the final holdout of civility?

carol

Anonymous said...

Ok, I meant for that to go with the later entry about the movies. oh well

carol