Dear Monney,
I'm driving alone, in a county I know only in passing. You know how that is: You know that one way is the interstate, another way is Route 29, and over that way somewhere are the mountains. But in the area bounded by these more recognizable landmarks, you drive around and you are more or less lost. This is the traveler's most desired state: you have a vague idea where you are, and you know that if you were to keep driving in one direction for a while, you'd eventually find your way to something you've seen before, but at the same time you're pretty much lost.
I've stopped the car to look for a jacket that I thought was in the backseat, and I find myself in the front yard of a house. Hidden only about ten yards up the hill, it was previously invisible behind years of weeds and reclaiming neglect.
Even in April, poison ivy already guards what must have been a driveway. I walk carefully up and find the back door gone. It's hard to find floor - these old walls have obviously watched their share of partying teenagers and other assorted vandals - the contents of most every closet, cupboard and drawer are thrown anywhere and everywhere.
Plastic flowers. Lots of them. Poinsettias. Tulips. Daisies. Lilacs. Lots of others that seem to be based less on any known species.
The lure of things abandoned - I'm always feeling it. It doesn't have to be a house. Or even a building. I often find myself standing before peeling billboards, rusting farm equipment, used up junkyards. And for that matter, much the same can be said for vintage clothing stores. It's not surprising that things with a history can tell you all sorts of secrets, share some of their richness. I've always felt like there was an energy - is it the energy of the last occupant? of the place/thing itself? Either way, there's a holiness that needs to be honored and protected. You can't go disrespecting the sacredness of the abandoned any more than you can go stealing from graves - there's a price to be paid.
So when I'm in church - like I am today - I tread lightly, and I give my thanks to the Gods of Abandonment - along with my own little offering when I'm done. I try and leave a little arrangement - maybe it's things in the house, maybe a little offering of pebbles and grass - something to leave a little positive energy.
A six pack carton of Tru-Ade - returnable bottles.
I look for dates on things - newspapers, a copyright on the instruction book for an instamatic camera. Of course you can guess at dates on everything from wallpaper to packages of Christmas lights. But there's something so finite and real about an actual date. And a name. The newest thing I find here is a prescription bottle from twenty-three years ago.
I stare for a while at a pepsi bottle on the kitchen floor and think about what I looked like in 1982. I think about where other people were. My mom? Ingrid? When I stopped the car to look for my jacket, The Rolling Stones' "Emotional Rescue" was playing on the car radio. I wonder which drugs Keith Richards was doing at the exact moment that someone in this house was taking their pills.
No less than four boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes. My cat's name is Kellogg. Does that have some meaning?
There's a windowless room - or maybe its just a closet - back behind the stairs - that I can't see into at all. It's broad April daylight, but it may as well be one a.m. for the recesses there. I pull my camera from my purse and fire randomly into the black, but its flash gives me only the tiniest of hints - clues that both entice and frighten me. Lots of shelves. With little bottles and tools. Or rusty parts to things? I can't make them out with the tiny blasts of brightness. Maybe when the film comes back I'll have better answers, but what meaning will those answers hold as I sit in the comfort of my living room?
A trading stamp redemption catalog. What were they saving for?
Corrected school papers, but no signs anywhere of children. Night school? Community College?
All the while cars drive by out on the main road - my stopped car the only clue of anything out of place here. If their drivers have ever even noticed this house, they've thought it a blight upon the landscape of their county - "Why can't someone come and tear things like that down?"
Please wait. This is the real life. The real history.
A pile of alarm clocks.
Four La-Z-Boy type recliners in one room. And lots of newspaper ads for furniture stores.
I have no desire - no use, really - for answers. My only search here is for more questions.
-Ellen