Remnants of Lives Lived

On my March trip to New Mexico, I saw many abandoned, broken down buildings – and simply had to stop to capture some of them on digital film. It made me wonder about the people who lived, worked, cried and laughed in these buildings.

Who entered through these doors?

And who exited through these doors?

Did they come and go with joy? Did they leave because life was no longer tenable in these places?

Was it because the family outgrew the space?

Life when many of these buildings were constructed would have been hardscrabble for many of these people. Trying to subsist on the land, trying to tame the vagaries of the weather with some years too wet, some too dry, some just right – having no control over the elements.

But there would have been joys too – the birth of a child, the success of a crop, the visits of friends, sharing cups of coffee, fruits of the land, jugs of home-brewed refreshments, dances with fiddlers plenty.

Times spent in homebuilt rocking chairs on porches.

Community gatherings.

Time passes

lives change and end

the ravages of time and the elements tear apart structures

and we move on in one way or another. I like to believe that there was more happiness in these lives than sorrow; I like to believe there was success – success that allowed time to sit on the porch and remember the good times, remember the youth of children now grown, read stories to the children of those children, to hold the hand of the partner that had shared those years and feel gladness that the hand is there to hold.

I like to believe there was enough.