For Jack

 Just a year ago, we moved into a old run down house. A White House green with mildew, on five acres with run down sheds and barns that needed to be flattened. The yard was overgrown, the house needed to have everything updated and replaced and fixed. We wanted it. We bought it. We started cutting and hauling and cleaning and scrubbing and power washing and rewiring and painting and tearing out carpet. We haven't stopped thinking of ways to use the land. The house isn't updated yet, but that's okay.

We've got pigs and gardens and chickens and we are dreaming of a cow. We soak in the green and the trees and the beauty surrounding us. The house oozes stories from someone's childhood. Someone that had a childhood you only wish you can/could have had. The childhood we want for our children.
 The house only knew one other family. We've kept in touch. The daughter that grew up here visited a few weeks ago with her children. We walked the land and through the house and heard the stories of laughter. A lot of laughter. Adventure. A lot of adventure.  Jack, the other child who grew up here long ago (we knew because his name is still sketched on the closet wall - a child's handwriting) recently contacted us. He sent us a nine page letter full of the stories of his life there. We spent a sunny Sunday as George read and we hung on every word. We cried at the end. So many parallels, down to the dog. Down to the weeds. Jack sent a book his mother kept. Receipts and stories. Logs of carpets and irons and bushes purchased.
 The pictures are for Jack. His childhood home is alive again. I shot the pictures as life looked today. No cleaning up. No perfection. Toys and bikes and tools all over and even a door hanging on one hinge, clinging to the past and reminding us that we can rebuild and recreate and and watch it change and be our place for laughter and adventure and survival and creativity and life.
 We will keep putting in the work and adding more and working through it. For us. For Jack and Janice and their children and for not throwing away a jewel that just needs to be polished. For 3022 Livingston Road. We will keep polishing.....












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