Lessons Learned: Aging Beautifully

It seems I find beauty in almost everything, from the obvious opulence of Mother Nature at her finest to the inevitable decay of all things manmade. Old buildings are certainly among my favorite subjects.

Peeling paint produces wonderfully complex textures, colors and designs. Weathered wood and rusted metal reminds us of the non-permanence of such solid structures as skyscrapers, bridges and rural homesteads. And the overall ambiance of the location harkens back to a time when life was different.

I call this building a Carriage House, although I'll admit it's more due to the romantic impression of discovering it tucked in behind a row of hardwood trees on a gentle rainy day than the knowledge of any actual facts about it.

I find it very easy to visualize horses pawing at their stalls in anxious anticipation of taking the family out for a ride into town via buggy or sleigh. I can almost see the harnesses and other tack hung on the walls within. And the horse-drawn vehicle itself, resting in place awaiting a team of prancing stallions to draw it forth once again into the light of day.

I think this building must have seen hundreds of happy departures, sleepy late-night returns home, and hours of joy and practical convenience made possible by "modern" transportation, every one of them recorded now by the scars of its slow and steady decline into the past.