Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

This old house

 by Julie Carter

Weathered lumber sagging and leaning, gaping holes with wind battered tin that once served as a roof and a grove of trees as dead as the house they surround marks the spot where life once had a pulse.

This old house, as with countless others just like it, stands as testimony to a generation that has all but faded into the blowing sands of time.

The worn structure is silent, almost brooding. Door and window frames shadow box a dark emptiness that beckons a passerby to look closer.

Wind whistles through the spaces that once held warmth and light. The passing of time allows imagination more than memory to create a history for the old homestead.

The sounds of laughing children as they run through the house and out the back door can be heard if you let your mind travel to where those whispers of the past are stored.

The screen door flies open to the limit of its worn spring, and then snaps back with a hollow slam. That sound is repeated continuously until a reprimanding shout from Mom ends the chaos.

The kids, still laughing, head for the barn where they can continue their play without the danger of extra chores as penalty for their noise and door slamming.

A clothes line, three wires and long enough to require a center support, is fully loaded with fresh-washed bedding, towels, jeans and shirts in six sizes and a large assortment of socks and underwear.

Looking weary and worn, Mom throws out the last of the wash tub water, aiming it toward the wild rose patch growing aimlessly along one side of the house. She undoes her apron, hangs it on the porch rocker and wanders to her garden where she will continue to coax life from the vegetables she planted a month earlier.

Chickens scratch in the dirt beyond the wood pile, a hound lays in the shade of a nearby cottonwood tree while birds above him chirp and keep time with the rustling of the leaves.

The worry of survival and the joy of appreciation feed the timeless emotion of hope in the couple, which as we all know, “springs eternal.” She hopes for a better life for her children and he hopes to see them grown.

There was never a road map for life for them in the day-to-day function of living. The homestead represented a new beginning but gave no promises for an ending. 

In my youth, I slammed my share of screen doors and ducked the work in the garden by disappearing over the hill with my brothers. I saw my mother tired beyond her years and my dad aged with worry hidden by his laughter and the sparkle of his eyes as seen under the shadow of his sweat-stained hat.

I am a product of that same meandering method of survival and never-ending hope for better.  That in itself has always given me strength for perseverance and belief that out there ahead of me is something better.

Like the darkness looming behind the worn out walls of a falling homestead, so calls the heart and souls of that generation. Don’t lose the lesson of the living and take with you the secrets of tomorrow.

Come closer, look within.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.