Strictly speaking, the thought for today isn't unique
to October, but it is the season when I think about them the most, so it
totally counts. So what am I talking about, well, barns of course. I love barns
as much as I love pumpkins, but pumpkins are easier to purchase and take up a
lot less room, so I have to content myself with snapshots, clippings, and
Google searches to feed my habit. I especially love barns that are rotting and
weathered and about to fall down. But new shiny barns that are all red and have
white trim catch my fancy too. Yup, I am an equal opportunity barn lover.
Not growing up in the country has lead me to have a
very romanticized notion of barns that I am sure people who actually live with
them and use them do not have. To me, barns are full of mystery and beauty, history
and stories. I almost can't go by a barn without it sparking my imagination, which
now that I live in the sticks makes for dangerous driving. I can't be day
dreaming every time I leave my driveway.
Barns have a sense of history that houses don't.
People modify houses all the time. Unless it is a historical dwelling, houses
change with the times. But barns, barns stay the same. Their purpose is to be
functional. No one decides to remodel their barn unless they use it as an
office or guesthouse. Barns get left alone for the most part. They watch life
go by and in some cases have ushered it in.
A good barn doesn't look new when its final days come.
A good barn looks like it has lived every inch of its life the day it finally
collapses. And that is how barns should go. They shouldn't be demolished with a
bulldozer or wrecking ball. They should stand for years and slowly list to one
side. Finally they should succumb to the alluring pull of gravity. A good barn
should lie in a pile of cracked timbers for a few years with vines and creepers
growing over it before it is finally removed. After all, it has served its
purpose, it deserves a rest.
My favorite thing when going down a highway is to look
for tipsy barns. You see them in the strangest places. My favorite is one that
stands just off the highway on the outskirts of a busy city. There is a vacant
weedy lot being sold and there is an old crumbling barn sitting on it. It lists
to the left in the front and the timbers have seen better days. The door has
long since fallen off and not a stitch of paint can be seen. I love that barn.
These days we try our hardest not to show our age, to
hide our peeling paint and cracked timbers, but old barns, they don't have
anything to prove to anyone. They are out there for all to see, withstanding
the ravages of time and showing every scar and nick. We could learn a lot from
barns.
Barns remind me of who I am. They remind me of the
passage of time and of history gone by. What has happened in those barns? Maybe
they were used to store machinery. Maybe someone had their first kiss snuggled
back in a hayloft. Perhaps it was a working barn with animals and tractors and
gear hung from the rafters.
For some reason barns just make me nostalgic. They get
my imagination going immediately. I think of barn owls soaring around the
rafters. I hear the rustle of hay as a horse turns around in its stall. I watch
the sunset from the open door of a hay loft, or feel the burn of the rope as I
swing off a rafter into packed straw. I can smell the grease from an old
tractor and hear the clink of tools swinging from their hooks in the breeze.
Then there are October barns. They are good for dances, outdoor movies and
haunted houses.
My favorite barn related discovery so far has been a
small business called, are you ready, Built of Barnwood. So of course I love
it, I mean it has barn in the title. It is now defunct, but it was run
exclusively by a family of four and they even let their kids design some of
their goods. They took wood from old barns and pallets and make new things from
them. That just made my heart smile. I bought quite a few things from them and
I love the idea that my little bit of wood used to be a working barn and now it
has a new lease on life cheering me up. What a great idea. I should have
thought of it first.
See,
there are many, many reasons to love barns. Go find one and send me some
pictures.
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