Around my cabin are a lot of items that are of no use to
anyone, that probably should have been thrown away a long time ago. On the side
of the shed sits an old wooden chair (below), paint peeling, the nails no longer quite
holding the pieces together, so it’s unusable. And yet I’m loathe to get rid of
it; it’s a symbol of something constructed by hand, so it has some integrity
and beauty that newer pieces of furniture don’t have. And it connects me to all
the previous owners of this cabin. Someone, maybe 30 years ago, built that
chair, sat in it, and enjoyed the same view of the Twin Sisters peaks that I
do.
On the east side of the house sits an old piece of machinery
that I suspect was for cutting logs. It probably hasn’t been used for 20 or 30
years and in summer is partly covered by wild rose bushes. I know there are
people in this world (some of them relatives and friends) who would clear their
property of anything not useful, who would see these things as eyesores, as junk to be put in the garbage can. But
that old log cutter tells a story: that someone, before the days of chainsaws,
hand fed trees into the machine. It tells me that things weren’t always as they
are today, that people at one time were more self-sufficient and knew how to
take care of themselves.
I’ve
noticed that when people sell their cabins, that includes all the items in it,
as if they have become part of the cabin and have settled into the floor and
walls. Some of the furnishings in my
cabin are probably from the original owners: a wooden table scarred by 70 years
of use (above), a lampstand carved by one of Allenspark’s long-term residents—furniture
chosen by someone with different tastes than me, yet still useful. Upstairs is a Scrabble game someone left
behind, just waiting for the right time—a cold winter day with friends and
nothing else to do.
In this throwaway culture, where we get new TVs, computers
and phones every few years, it’s a rarity and luxury to have items that have lasted
so long. And the old chair, the hand lumber mill, the falling down fences (top) and the leaning
outhouse have stood not just the test of
time but the weather—rain, snow, cold, heat, wind—and have been shaped
by those forces. They sit there, an affront to our throwaway culture. Maybe if
I hold on to them I can believe that there’s a continuity in life, that I’m
connected to all the people who lived here. Or maybe that I can rewind the
hands of time to a different era, one that appreciated things that endured.
What a great post! I'm with you--these objects are part of the landscape now. You can enjoy them [I do!] and also make a promise to the land and the cabin not to add any new objects. Great photos!
Posted by: shoney | January 18, 2013 at 09:44 AM
Love the fact that time continues in the mts with some things never changing! That is unique!
Posted by: Sally | January 21, 2013 at 09:17 PM
Beautiful. I love the wooden table. I think old things have a depth of character and quality that animates them and makes them seem more real somehow. Like you say, it's about continuity and feeling part of an unbroken cycle in some small way. Old items that last and continue to fulfill their function ground us and root us in a comforting way. This cheap, tacky, throw-away world that we have created fosters alienation, disconnection from the past and makes it difficult to believe we will have a future at all. This reminds me of something I read years ago in Bruce Chatwin's Footprints of the Ancestors: 'The world, if it has a future, has an ascetic future.' . . . so don't throw out that old log cutting machine, it may still come in handy AFTER "the days of chainsaws."
Posted by: Laurel | February 03, 2013 at 08:59 AM
An ascetic future -- I like that.
Posted by: Kathy Kaiser | February 03, 2013 at 10:39 AM