The Whispers of the Ghosts
If one listens carefully to the silence one can hear the distant echos of the whispers Ghosts in the decaying stucture.
Walls once dusty, dry and brutal are decaying from the moss and fungus growing where the dripping water and shadows predominate.
The men and machines are long gone. Their sweat evaporated and blew away like the life they fed to the sagging bricks and over-burdened wood buckling under the weight of a rain-soaked roof.
The humming and rythm only now exists in a distant echo thinning with each reflection.
I stumbled upon two abandoned places somewhere in Connecticut. I have to refer to my notes for more exact locations.
One was an industrial of some sort – foundations, smokestack, a steel skeleton, and a building with no windows or doors and a piece of the roof gone. The place was cleared of anything productive with the exception of a ghost’s echo reverberating from two large faded yellow-painted, rusting machine parts – great gears with a bowl-shaped center.
I was the 5th or 6th day of rain and the structure was alive with moss and black fungus. I think I remember seeing grass or something green from where the sun shone on the decaying concrete floor.
The other was a left-over gas station. It’s front door was ajar so I stepped inside. I didn’t travel much further than the doorway – the place was small enough that I could see all the way to the rear wall. There wasn’t much to obstruct the musty view – just a door way next to two ransacked and pillaged desks. The bulletin board and shelves above were equally a mess: crooked, hanging out of plumb.
I was only there briefly but the place looked like death after it’s forgotten.
I have a fascination with forgotten and abandoned places and even roads. I’m fascinated by the history behind the inception as well as demise, the planning, life, death … factories, tunnels, bridges, schools, asylums, expressways, highways, backroads … all of these man made stuctures designed to provide something or a service. All needing people to run them, use them – designed by people and left to decay by people. I’ve always been fascinated in the world around me and I haven’t outgrown it yet and I doubt I will.
I find these places and if I’m lucky, my size 7.5 (40.5) foot prints are the only ones there. If I have a chance I stand there and listen to the whispers of the ghosts in the walls, the ghosts floor and in the air. I wonder where they are and what they have seen and what their future holds. Maybe I’m reflecting upon myself and my life when piecing the history of the last days of wherever I am.
Its astonishing what we can see in ourselves when we forget to look.
The moon climed up an empty sky
These days have me sitting here wondering about a few things. This is not the first time in history that our once-great Nation is at a turning point.
Times of question, uncertanty and self-reflection are nothing new.
What gets me is the sheer obese amount of information available and the abundant means in which to find information – and it’s mind numbingly easy. Turn on a radio or a TV, open a newspaper, or even one of a zillion Websites with either news or links to news. Often, CNN is playing in stores or bars … or a news station. Abandoned, current newspapers on the subway or at a diner … it’s all around us.
I know I verbally slap the GOP around like a rented mule in some of my writing here so I’ll save further regurgitation of what NPR, Back to Iraq, the BBC and other proper media outlets broadcast.
I know I write this over and over but I need a change in direction. I’m fairly certain it’s something that only I can do for myself. I make excuses:
– I don’t have funding
– I don’t have a media outlet or publishing deal lined up
– I don’t have contacts
There are too many “don’ts”. Too much negativity. As much as I enjoy looking at photo essays and photo books et cetera, I can’t help but get a little down and maybe even a bit jealous. I want to be in the middle of a shit storm or in some forgotten corner of the globe with cameras in hand under a relentless sun or bone-crushing rain …
How do I get to these places?
That’s my biggest hurdle.
The local media – or at least the newspapers – are a joke at best as the media industry is becoming old and frail. The New York Times’ decision to fire 500 workers, make their Website pay-based and after the debogle with Judith Miller … well, they’re not what they used to be.
About Judith Miller. It’s obvious why the NYT let her rot in jail – for the bogus stories she wrote about Iraq and the phantom WMDs. She’s one of the Bushies through and through. Her situation is a rare one in that I think she should have given up her sources (at least sought out permission to uncover them) given the nature of the investigation and for whom she was covering. The other day, she realized that she might have spoken with another source – whom she can’t remember – after mysteriously finding another notebook.
Maybe the GOP ought to give Ms Miller the position vacated by Armstrong Williams – or at least officially give it to her.
As usual the White House is being tight-lipped about Miers. As it seems, the only qualification we know of is her being Evangelical. Of course she’s white and wealthy. Whereas the situation with John Roberts discussing his religious beliefs was out of the question and all but forbidden, it’s the ONLY thing Scott McClellan – or anyone for that matter – is willing to comment on. Dubya is taking on the role of the character Joe Isuzu from the car manufacturer’s 1980′s television commercials. Mr Isuzu was a sleazy (but funny) car salesman whose tag line was a smarmy “… just trust me …”.
Even the holy roller and other Ultra Right Wingers (who are sadly no longer a fringe group) question Dubya in his decision. Of course she’ll be nominated and of course it will be shady.
Afterall, we’re talking about Christians and the GOP. The base principles of both groups are Money, Power and Money.
I’m working on Website updates.
I’m removing the Cindy Sheehan section from my Website but the photos will remain on Flickr. I’m also removing the email, resume, and writing links and making a bio page instead for all of that.
Going in the place of the removals will be new sections – Providence, Boston and maybe one with motion or something like that. I’m open to suggestions and even a second set of eyes in the editing process.
