Abandoned Places
What is it about abandoned places? They’re mysterious, they captivate our imaginations. They activate our curiosity.They evoke feelings of sadness and wonder.
I can’t help but imagine what must have happened to them. Who lived there, how many stories happened there, why was it abandoned? In my minds eye I try to see them as they must have been. Alive with activity and full of the people that made them come to life.
Over the past couple of years my daughter & I have been photographing abandoned places that we happen upon. The very first time we decided that we wanted to do this we went to Lometa Texas. Lometa is a place that I’ve been to my whole life. My grandparents and great grandparents are buried there. However this time, this visit we saw things that we never noticed before. There amongst the everyday activities, traffic, people coming & going, was the remnants of the town it once was.
The first place we stopped out was an old abandon house. The windows and doors were broken out. The front porch was sagging, the interior was filled with the debris of humans. We stood on the outside looking in taking photographs and wondering if someone would come along and ask us what we were doing. My daughter & niece decided they wanted to go in and look around. I really had mixed feelings about that, after all wouldn’t that be trespassing? They persisted and seeing that it was totally open I gave in, making them promise to be careful and to hurry. I watched from the doorway as they went up the stairs to the second floor. I will never forget the look on my nieces face as she stood at the top of the stairs. Her eyes wide, her head nodding as I whispered up to her “Is it scary?” After they came out the excitement was contagious we were hooked. The house had been full of things left behind, full of evidence that others had come and left their marks on the walls. All the questions, imagined stories and wonder inspired us to go find more.
We wandered through the downtown square, we googled and learned the history of the town. We took tons of photographs. Then just when we thought we would head home, we found the old train station. There it stood all by itself, worn, weathered, windows broken and perfect. The girls ran to the building before I could even get out of the truck. Noses pressed to what little glass was left they excitedly yelled for us to come and see. Their vehement proclamations of “Your not going to believe this!” were justified. As I looked through the window, there in the middle of a large empty room hung a shiny new red swing. Our minds literally exploded. What was a swing doing in the middle of the train station? Who put it there? Why did they put it there? It was almost too much to comprehend, it just didn’t make sense. While we stood there in awe, my daughter calmly walked over to the door and walked into the room. Needless to say we all followed. We stood in front of the swing and were further amazed that written in white letters was a web address www.redswingproject.org. Fingers blazed over 3 different cell phones. Then in even more amazement we saw the website. WE ANONYMOUSLY HANG RED SWINGS IN PUBLIC PLACES INSPIRING PLAYFULNESS AROUND THE WORLD. Can you imagine! The sheer enormity of it dumbfounded me. Who knew there was such an amazing organization? What were the chances of finding such a thing in the middle of an abandoned train station in Lometa Texas??? Well there was nothing left to do but swing. And swing we did, the unbelievable joy this swing brought to us is something that I’ll never forget. That fleeting moment of awe and the discovery of something so unexpected was a serendipitous lesson for all of us. You never know what you might find if you don’t go looking!
What is it about abandoned places? They’re mysterious, they captivate our imaginations. They activate our curiosity.They evoke feelings of sadness and wonder.
I can’t help but imagine what must have happened to them. Who lived there, how many stories happened there, why was it abandoned? In my minds eye I try to see them as they must have been. Alive with activity and full of the people that made them come to life.
Over the past couple of years my daughter & I have been photographing abandoned places that we happen upon. The very first time we decided that we wanted to do this we went to Lometa Texas. Lometa is a place that I’ve been to my whole life. My grandparents and great grandparents are buried there. However this time, this visit we saw things that we never noticed before. There amongst the everyday activities, traffic, people coming & going, was the remnants of the town it once was.
The first place we stopped out was an old abandon house. The windows and doors were broken out. The front porch was sagging, the interior was filled with the debris of humans. We stood on the outside looking in taking photographs and wondering if someone would come along and ask us what we were doing. My daughter & niece decided they wanted to go in and look around. I really had mixed feelings about that, after all wouldn’t that be trespassing? They persisted and seeing that it was totally open I gave in, making them promise to be careful and to hurry. I watched from the doorway as they went up the stairs to the second floor. I will never forget the look on my nieces face as she stood at the top of the stairs. Her eyes wide, her head nodding as I whispered up to her “Is it scary?” After they came out the excitement was contagious we were hooked. The house had been full of things left behind, full of evidence that others had come and left their marks on the walls. All the questions, imagined stories and wonder inspired us to go find more.
We wandered through the downtown square, we googled and learned the history of the town. We took tons of photographs. Then just when we thought we would head home, we found the old train station. There it stood all by itself, worn, weathered, windows broken and perfect. The girls ran to the building before I could even get out of the truck. Noses pressed to what little glass was left they excitedly yelled for us to come and see. Their vehement proclamations of “Your not going to believe this!” were justified. As I looked through the window, there in the middle of a large empty room hung a shiny new red swing. Our minds literally exploded. What was a swing doing in the middle of the train station? Who put it there? Why did they put it there? It was almost too much to comprehend, it just didn’t make sense. While we stood there in awe, my daughter calmly walked over to the door and walked into the room. Needless to say we all followed. We stood in front of the swing and were further amazed that written in white letters was a web address www.redswingproject.org. Fingers blazed over 3 different cell phones. Then in even more amazement we saw the website. WE ANONYMOUSLY HANG RED SWINGS IN PUBLIC PLACES INSPIRING PLAYFULNESS AROUND THE WORLD. Can you imagine! The sheer enormity of it dumbfounded me. Who knew there was such an amazing organization? What were the chances of finding such a thing in the middle of an abandoned train station in Lometa Texas??? Well there was nothing left to do but swing. And swing we did, the unbelievable joy this swing brought to us is something that I’ll never forget. That fleeting moment of awe and the discovery of something so unexpected was a serendipitous lesson for all of us. You never know what you might find if you don’t go looking!