Honoring the Good Past

There’s something about a very old photograph that really draws me in. Perhaps it’s the black and white monochrome world that looks oddly “at a distance” – as if that’s the best that could be done at that time – almost like a dream.

I like to see how people are dressed and I try to sense how it felt to be in that place at that time. Did the air feel different?

It’s not just old photographs that attract me, but an old truck in a meadow, or a barn that may appear dilapidated to another’s eye, but to me it presents an interesting pattern with parts of the dark inside showing thru wooden planks, sometimes missing and sometimes broken, sometimes with holes made by birds.

Maybe that’s what it is – they’re each a survivor, something that just hangs on – a relic of the deep past, fitting in as best as it still can. The Japanese call it “wabi sabi” – seeing the beauty in natural imperfection, as if its imperfection makes it sublimely real.

It’s as if an old Victorian house, an old bicycle or washing machine wear its age and in a sense, its wisdom of living every moment it can. These things seem to grow in “grace.” I also feel my ancestors nearby as I look at such things.

Perhaps entering an old theater is more than nostalgic, but more like feeling several lifetimes still alive right now.