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Coffee: Maxwell House Master Blend, Office Coffee
Walking alone one morning a few weeks back in Midtown Atlanta, I came across three dilapidated stone walls with ivy growing through them. They used to be the foundation of something, but that something was long gone. A bit of gravel and an old log were all that was stuck between them.
That part of the neighborhood had houses on high hills overlooking the road. Just a block further up was a steep iron fire escape climbing three stories. A guy in a beanie and rolled up slacks was creeping onto it from the second-story window. But anyway, the area was steep, so the broken old walls were likely the bones of a basement. I liked the way the ivy had them, and the deep gray color, and the fact that the sun was hardly out, and the smell of burnt sugar, honeysuckle, and that I was walking away somewhere with someone waiting for me, but sleeping, so that the waiting could go on and on and on with no effort, stress, anticipation. I thought about taking a picture of the three walls but I didn’t. Cameras can’t capture the feeling of old ghosts.
I spend a lot of my time looking for anchors. Bits of scenery, something that seems familiar, important, and that can fix me to a position long enough to get a grasp on who I am. A dwindling creekbed I pass every morning, or downtown Durham after the gas explosion. Life goes so fast I can’t catch myself, so I try finding the places I’ve left myself waiting.
I thought about walking between the three old walls, taking a seat on the log, but I didn’t want to disturb it. Dilapidation hangs together like a card castle. The best I can do is share a bit of it here.
Currently Reading: Queen, Suzanne Crain Miller
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Houses have their own ways of dying, falling as variously as the generations of men, some with a tragic roar, some quietly, but to an after-life in the city of ghosts…
E.M. Forster, Howards End
Livesay Writing 