Every old house has a story...I wish I knew yours

(Copyright of image belongs to me: Corrie, 6/12/11)

Tonight's blog post regrettably will be short, seeing as how apparently I woke up this morning destined to feel terrible after my break at work at 11:15. But, it wasn't anything a nap - which is a rare occurence I must tell you! - couldn't fix, at least for the most part. A faint headache is still lingering at the nape of my neck like stubborn nighttime fog laying low atop the pointy tips of a dense, blue-green forest even though the faintest of morning light is weaving its thin, sparkling strands into the brightening sky like yellow-white paint leaking slowly onto an all black tapestry, making slow but deliberate progress.

Well, all of that aside, let me tell you the story behind this beautiful, abandoned house I had the luck of stumbling upon! I believe it happened about two to three weeks ago, although the first time I came close to it, I wasn't even sure if it was there and only confirmed its existence later on Google Maps. Which, by the way, is an amazing tool! Whenever I'm bored I can just hop on Google Maps and peruse the dilapidated streets of any place I want! One particularly boring day I cruised around Brooklyn - which for some reason my mind has fixated on as this awesome place, much in the same matter as it has with Oklahoma - and found one of my most beloved architectural icons: the Brooklyn Bridge! And yes, I know what you're thinking. For a woman who claims to love the countryside and balk at city life in general, why is she rambling on so lovingly about New York City? Well because it's New York City! How can you not love it? I dream about some day carrying a professional camera and strolling those ambling, labyrinth-like sidewalks and streets, snapping a picture every few seconds because there would be so much to capture! Plus, I've always had a fascination for decreipt old factory buildings or abandoned hospitals. Creepy? Perhaps, but like approaching the abandoned house in the picture above, I'm positive I could overcome any fears I would have strolling about NYC's abandoned industrial buildings for the sake of that precious photograph my eyes can later wander to again and again when I feel my heart yearning to be in that place again.

So, what was that fear you spoke of earlier? Well, I'll tell you that for all the abandoned houses I've taken pictures of over the years, and regrettably there are few I have actual photographs of, all the others are either crisp or gradually fading inside those vast corridors of rusty, overstuffed filing cabinets in my consciousness, the one in the above picture is the only one I've deliberately approached on my own, and within such close range!

The way my work schedule works out, I only work Tuesday-Thursday, leaving Monday and Friday free. So naturally because it's summer - at least it was, stupid Wisconsin had to go and have a memory lapse and think it's Fall again, but I shall leave the weather rant for another day! - and I don't want to be one of those people who sits on my rear all day holed up inside, I decided to go for a bike ride! Now normally I'm content with traveling the same old paths on my bike, because A) I like going to the places I normally bike to and B) Once I bike beyond the familiar areas my navigational skills take a back seat to my curisoity and "old-house-lookout-mode", sorry but I couldn't think of a better name for it! But lately I've discovered that the same old paths just won't cut it anymore. So a few weeks ago on Monday I decided to go beyond the familiar sidewalks and roads and bike further, I was out for an hour and  half! Thus is how I stumbled upon the narrow country highway the abandoned house above silently sits next to too.

The first time I came across this road I ended up turning down another road leading to a residental area because I wasn't quite sure where I was! Before I turned off of the rural highway I noticed a Cream City brick farmhouse down the way but couldn't make out much more. Of course my heart tugged me in that direction, but one look at the virtually nonexistence shoulder - and crumbling shoulder at that! - of the highway and I opted for the less traveled residental road. However, thanks to Google Maps I ended up discovering that the Cream City brick farmhouse was in fact abandoned, so of course I counted down the days until I could return, and snap some pictures!

Which leads me to the "fear" I mentioned earlier. And it wasn't all just the fear of biking down a narrow country road where the shoulders look like old, dried up pie crusts left to rot and flake away in the sun, it was the mere fact of parking my bike at the head of the overgrown gravel driveway, straddling it while I fished for my camera inside its case, taking it out and holding it before me, and framing the slumbering, blinded farmhouse within its mechanical eye while cars rushed by behind me. Now perhaps it's irrational but the whole time I was there snapping pictures hurriedly, I imagined - and feared - someone would pull over in their vehicle and demand to know what I was doing. Afterall, there were two metal posts set on either side of the driveway with an ominously creaking chain between them bearing a metal sign that said "no trespassing". But I didn't go beyond that, I simply went far enough in so I wouldn't be in the way of the cars flying up and down the highway.

Still, I know I underestimated how it would feel being so close to an abandoned house. I mean, think about it, it's kind of like parking next an unfamilar cemetery and deliberately walking amongst the graves, even though you know no one buried there and the only sounds are the ones you and the wind make, everything else is silent but yet it lives, watching you behind eyes wide shut. And that's a funny phrase isn't it? "Eyes wide shut". When I first heard of the movie with the same title starring Angelina Jolie - albeit I've never seen it, just like most movies unfortunately! - I thought to myself "what an oximoron! How can eyes be wide shut?" But of course now I understand, and I think it's a brilliant phrase! Hence of my use of it just a few sentences before.

Later on, after proclaiming that I had gone to the house and taken some photos, I told my parents that the boarded-up windows reminded me of cataract eyes struggling to see the world shifting slowly like a book whose pages are read by the wind which blew in occassional gusts and funnels that flapped the pages both backwards and forwards, sometimes getting nowhere, other times jumping ahead to nearly the end. All of the house's windows were boarded up, which was a smart thing to do considering what time and nature can do to both painted wood and glass. And the house can also count its blessings that it's made of brick, instead of vulnderable wood which can sag, rot and be stripped of every last shred of paint like a dead animal being skinned for the pleasure of its fur adorning someones bedroom so their feet can swing from their warm bed and find refuge from the chilled, stiff floorboards.

Maybe I had that thought because I've read too many Stephen King novels - of which there is no such thing, right? :) - or maybe it's because I have an overactive imagination, or my fear was just itching for a way to solidify itself in a metaphor so I could get a handle on it.Whatever the reason, I found the metaphor intriguing, and all the more reason to return to the house! Although, I don't know how many more angles I can take pictures from, seeing as how I've stood to the right of it, to the left of it, and in front of it. Obviously I don't want to go beyond the "no trespassing" sign , although there is a part of me that yearns to feel the time-worn brick underneath my fingers and gently touch the brilliant orange poppies that have bloomed along the facade and shadow-laden left side of the house. I also wonder what lays beyond the catract windows with their smooth wooden boards fitted tightly over them. Are the windows the original two-over-two wooden? Are the glass panes intact and wavy? Are the rooms lined with luscious wallpaper or modest paint colors? Is there furniture still standing squat and tall, layered with decades or years of time?

When I see the roof and its relatively unaltered state I wonder how long the house has been abandoned. And thus comes in the title for today's post: "every old house has a story...I wish I knew yours". And I do wish I knew the story of this particular Cream City brick farmhouse. My heart is bursting with the triumph of discovering and returning to an abandoned house on my own, but yet it breaks while still holding together at the thought that it is abandoned and may never be lived in again. The grass in the yard is long and untended, fluttering and undulating in the wind like the tangled mass of a Mustang's mane and tail, the orange poppies stand out in marked contrast with the Cream City brick as a backdrop, there's a long ago fallen down barn in the back, of a smaller size, while another wooden storage shed still stands strong and square, like the house itself.

While perhaps no more pictures may come of this recent and most intriguing discovery, it may come that my mind cannot simply file away the thought of its being there and immortalize the farmhouse into a story, where the boards will peel away from those beautifully preserved windows, the chipping, light gray roof shingles will become a solid, sparkling black, those orange poppies will no longer sway amongst an undulating sea of grass but find it cropped short by the whir of a mower, perhaps an old-fashioned one and the gravel drive will once again feel the crunch of tires or the uneven pounding of feet upon it, all blessed signs that life is returning, and the unblinking stares of time and nature have been hooded for another handful of years, maybe decades, perhaps even centuries. Even as every old house I have encountered crumbles in this life, it can rise strong and steady on its uneven, fieldstone foundation and welcome the new life sketched before it as if it were slumbering all those years it had laid empty and is awakened by a gentle tug and opens its cataract-clouded eyes to a world brimming with color and motion, a world it had almost forgotten, but had stored away in a diligently marked filing cabinet along the most sagging and narrow corridors of its consciousness, where its weight could be felt like an old cat curling into its familiar spot at the foot of your bed, and even after its long since passed you still feel that weight, knowing somehow its still with you, only not in the physical sense but somewhow it feels just as close, it feels right.