For
men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they
are born, the city apartment or farm in which they learnt to walk, the games
they played as children, the old wives tales they overheard, the food they ate,
the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and
the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they
are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay... ―W. Somerset Maugham
Just as people are a mulligatawny mix, so are places. They are bowls left with remnants of unique recipes, scraps and scents of stories, wanting to be savored, waiting to be told. ―me
image: from my Abandoned America series, "T-Shirt Window", Delaware, Ohio
Hello:
ReplyDeleteAnd, how intriguing it is to strip away the layers of paint, to chip away the peeling stucco and to reglaze the windows that afford a view into the lives of others!!
Excellent quote from Maugham. Many of us, from time to time, tend to forget the truths in his words. Perhaps as we age, our reflections can bring us back to those places, despite broken window panes or torn window shades....
ReplyDeleteTo your point, the "remnants" sometimes are wanting and waiting to be re-told. So true of my latest post. Thanks for this, Tess!
Rick
I am definitely a part of my remnants, what i have read and seen and hopefully they are making me a better person?
ReplyDeletehumm
ReplyDeletethere is less to me that meets the eye
!
This is so vey true and well worth pondering.
ReplyDeleteIncredible image; one of my
ReplyDeletefavorite image picks for my
albums are windows, and red
siding, peeling, once brilliant,
still interesting. Every window
has a story to tell, a treasure
hidden partially from sight,
a novella unread, a poem not
yet born.
Great quote and a wonderful photo! Hope you are doing well...
ReplyDeleteHistory that should always remain standing. That image really strikes at my heart strings. And the quote by Maugham sums up everything about times of old in which the modern age of glass and steel tends to eclipse. I really enjoy this picture, and I enjoy the history of what it held.
ReplyDeleteI do so love your Abandoned America series!
ReplyDeletefascinating bit of philosophy on your part tess...and mulligatawny is my new favorite word...
ReplyDeleteI love your quote just as much as the first.....beautiful....thought provoking....and so true! :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat quote, Tess! Remnants left standing can often be an art itself. It is how it is appreciated as you did!
ReplyDeleteHank
SM hardly misses a note, but here he's rather quoting the obvious. Our moulding makes us what we are.... Parents and teachers please note.
ReplyDeleteHow very pleasing to see that lovely word 'Mulligatawny' used over on your side of the pond.
Well said, Tess. You already know how I feel about the way history reaches out to us.
ReplyDeleteWe Are (at least) The Sum Of Our Parts.
ReplyDeleteVisiting A Building For The First Time, +Trying To Work Out Its History ,Is A Bit Like A Fisherman Waiting For A Bite...........
haunting really those t-shirts. W. Somerset quote quite affecting. Someone said he states the obvious, however that's okay by me. i often forget the obvious. need it to be pointed out. wonder if your abandoned america photos could be a book????
ReplyDeleteSuki, that's what I've been wondering...maybe they should...
ReplyDeleteWhen I see abandoned places my mind begins to spin with questions. Who left and why? What was this place like when it first came to be? Oh so many stories. The quote, the photo, your words...all sublime.
ReplyDeleteI tend to forget the obvious, too...
ReplyDeleteLovely, lovely quotes ... both of them. That's the truth of everyone, really. We are made of stories, told and untold.
ReplyDeleteYou write wonderfully well to the most beautiful images.......
ReplyDeleteI had just finished a warming bowl of mulligatawny before I read this Tess ... I love your Abandoned America series ...perhaps "abandoned" in the sense of wild and untamed too ... I get the feeling you are abandoned in every sense of the word ...
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. I'm with Bill too but mostly with you.
ReplyDeleteNo matter where on ends up, our origins always stay with us.
ReplyDeleteI have been an expat for most of my life but am still very British (or so I'm told). I have lived in this country for three weeks off 19 years. My children now 33 and 25 are different in many ways to their Trinidadian peers and I maintain it's because regardless of the their schooling here, their friends with local accents and the many different cultures in this rainbow Republic, they were brought up in a very European way because that's the way I was brought up. They of course have the best of both worlds much as I did as a child.
This Heinz 57 family was always called by my late mother, 'a band of gypsies' and I always said that 'home is where the air freight lands'!
Breathtaking photo. I started taking pictures of abandoned and broken down farms when I moved to Ohio. That would look great if you did a cyanotype of it. Just breathtaking.
ReplyDeleteHello Tess, what a fine book of poems. I love so much I'm reading them twice, and I have lots of new poetry to read. Yours resonate with me. Joyce
ReplyDeleteoh, that quote..
ReplyDeleteso true.