Explorations in Faded Places

Marsha has a fondness for things in decay.  I am not sure where it comes from, or indeed where it’s headed, this strange fascination.  For now, it finds expression in the images she’s captured of places that have fallen into disrepair and neglect.   Dusty old crossroad towns in the eastern plains.  Abandoned mining camps in the desert southwest.  Truckstop diners long since abandoned to a re-routed interstate or a chain restaurant across the frontage road.

We’ve been visiting many such places over the past few years.  We’ll post our impressions here – Marsha’s images, my words – as we visit more in the months and years to come.fdsfsd

There’s always a sense of melancholy that attaches to such places.  It’s hard not to recoil at the ugliness, to ponder the mysterious causes behind years of casual neglect, to accuse in absentia the invisible forces of nature or society that drove people away in the first place.   To be forgotten and abandoned is the flip side of hope, and the antithesis of the bold American enterprise.

But we have found in our visits that there’s a flip side to the flip side.  The melancholy begets a stubborn pride, the ugliness begets beauty, the mystery begets curiosity, and the accusations soften, sometimes, into compassion.

We’ll try to update the blog with some regularity, limited by our day jobs and the practical constraints on our ability to road trip from our home in Colorado.