An Afternoon at Deepwood

There are places that seem to ask you to slow down before you've even crossed the threshold.

Deepwood was one of them.

I followed the curved path toward the old Victorian house, its tower rising through the trees, and spent an afternoon wandering without much of a plan.

Perhaps that is the best way to enter an old place.

Not looking for anything in particular.

Just noticing.

Outside, the gardens were full and generous with summer. Hydrangeas leaned heavily beneath their blooms. Bright flowers rose between clipped hedges. Ferns softened the shaded corners, and tucked among all that green were little remnants of another time-

weathered stone, still water, moss growing where it pleased.

Then there was the house.

Old wood. Tall windows. Painted ceilings. A quiet porch wrapping around rooms that have watched generations come and go.

I found myself drawn to the smaller details more than anything else: an old door, the curve of the porch, a floral painting hanging against a lavender wall.

Things someone chose long ago.

Things that remained.

There is something about old homes that makes me wonder about the ordinary lives once lived inside them. Who stood at these windows? Who walked through the garden in the evening? What conversations disappeared into these rooms?

We can learn the dates and names and history of a place.

But there are other things a house keeps to itself.

So I wandered.

Through the garden.

Along the porch.

Past flowers and ferns and quiet corners where time seemed to have gently settled into the moss.

And for one summer afternoon, I was content simply to notice.

Field notes from Salem, Oregon

Wild Hawthorn