still...

i found these pictures on my computer the other day... taken one rainy day last december. on a quiet, river road in louisiana.

none of the pictures i took happened to be of the lovely preserved plantation and farm houses, but were all of these old, somewhat forgotten (and often abandoned) buildings.  the ones passed unseen by the few cars that drove past.
strange, in that they seemed to scream out with all that remained... the stories and past voices that echo against the bare walls.  i must have passed a few dozen of these places, each with an entirely different, palpable electricity in the air.
some comforting. some dripping with a sadness that made me wonder why it still stood as the evidence of some long ago pain... maybe, as humans, we need physical signs that our hurt was real.
all beautiful in their own way.

and then there were the people,  who sat and watched as i drove by.  sat and watched the cars that came before me. and the cars that inevitably followed. sat and watched for some indeterminable length of time.
like rooted trees that slowly grow and overlap and replace one another. and they silently screamed out with the same unspoken jumble of history.  eyes and mouths just as comforting or sad.  most lifting a hand, as a sort of passing proof that our paths crossed. that our lives touched in some way.
and i wished that i could sit and listen to the endless stories. the foundations of who they are. the ones their families were built upon.  to sit and feel the importance behind those pieces of memory.

happy monday