Opportunity

February is certainly a winter month, as we've experienced here in Iowa. March, however, brings the reality of Spring closer each moment. I love Spring. It feels like opportunity.

"Inside" and out

by Juano Lippi, photos by Martin Hogan


"Inside" and out from Juano Lippi on Vimeo.

Not everyone runs away...

I wonder how a family comes to let a place like this sit...empty and exposed to the elements. Then I remember my own childhood home in the same condition.

We ran away.

We ran away because we were ordered to by the patriarch of the family. Later we ran away from him...one, then another, then three at once.

But each of these houses cannot have the same story.

A friend of mine remembers an old couple living in this place as recently as 10 years ago...

You know, I would like to know each story. A few of them, I've learned. Each their own unique tale, but none like my own; none of them were tragic or sad... except that they left a house like this behind.

words

Usually, words come easily to me...

Most often, these words are spoken; but sometimes they flow from my fingers. It is when my words seem to take on their own life that I feel like I'm a passenger on a gentle roller coaster that I did not create but am responsible for.

My words, when I am their passenger, convey feelings and concepts that I can't necessarily claim ownership of...for I don't recognize them until after they have taken form. Yet, I know they are mine because they do accurately reflect what I think and how I feel...I just had not quite found the right frame for these thoughts or feelings before.

I have grown to trust the magic of this. I have come to appreciate how my mind can over-complicate things that my spoken or written words wrap into a lovely little package...

Diamonds

I am being beckoned by diamonds. Little black diamonds.

They are all unique, these diamonds; and I can't get them out of my mind.

I was recently given an Iowa Atlas and Gazetteer published by DeLORME that contains little black diamonds next to names like Flugstad, Brushy, Border Plains, Highview, Stonega, Wilke, Jones Siding, Tara, Roelyn, Slifer, Piper, Lavinia, Knoke, Sulphur Springs, Lotts Creek, May City, Raleigh, Bristol, Silver Lake, Cornell, Neils Spur, Fairville... I am struck that my breathing quickens while I type these names. These diamonds are all near my home, less than two hours of driving, and all I need do is travel there and claim them for my own.

In the past, I've uncovered some of these gems without knowing the diamonds that they were. Certainly much solemn thought was given to naming Ware, Depew, Osgood, Rossie, Langdon, and Halfa, and they are all diamonds that I valued but didn't understand...while other places carefully named Crippin Corners, Gridley, Paoli, Soda Bar, and Poplar Grove, some of which have not even earned their diamond from DeLorme in 2004, all have breezed past me without even a glance. They have become part of the landscape without any sign of the diamonds they once were.

Last weekend, knowing that I was searching for my little black diamonds, I made a few claims. Unique, Arnold, Rubens Siding, and Pioneer offered to me themselves, or what was remaining of them. The diamonds named Arnold and Rubens Siding were no longer visible at all. What was once Rubens Siding, mapped at the curve of a Pocahontas County blacktop, showed no signs of existing. Arnold, whose diamond rested on a gravel road, offered a landscape of cornfields and beanfields and with nothing more. Unique offered some signs, however. And Pioneer, a more recently unincorporated town, offered more.



I am excited about diamonds, glorious diamonds that I can claim with my camera while leaving for others exactly what I found. I am drawn to feel the spirit of these rural, Iowa towns that were carefully chosen and named by people whose investment in this Great Plains state have built the regional community I call my own.

Similarities and Differences

I grew up on a farm. Rural Nebraska was the place I called home through the seventies and into the eighties. It was in the mid-eighties that I together with my family transplanted our roots into the rich, black-soiled Iowa rural landscape. Growing up, I loved Nebraska with its sandy-banked rivers and acres of pastureland that nourished many varied ecosystems.

It seems to mirror my own understanding of how families live so different from each other, even upon the same homeland. Iowa hosts some of these same variations, but it seems that somehow a trace of similarity runs through everyone in Iowa. Or, perhaps it is my own increasing age that causes me to see more similarities. Regardless, these Great Plains farming states are my spirit's home and the rural landscape calls me.



My own childhood home is now abandoned and dilapidated. I am drawn to capture the images of others like this place fighting the struggle against the forces assaulting the Great Plains farming culture.

I wonder, though...

...why these abandoned and decaying houses that dot the landscape call to me.

I am not looking for ghosts; and while some places have left me unsettled, most do not. Most places cause me to wonder about the people that lived, worked, played, fought, loved, and left these homes.

Am I looking, then, for similarities or differences from what I know life was like in my own, now-abandoned home?

Perhaps I'm asking you, because I don't know.

Faith

While some may view this structure as a symbol of faith that has deteriorated, I view it quite differently. To me, this is representative of resilience accompanied with insight. The balance between being strong and sensitive is a magnificent part of emerging into a place of faith.

There are so many spectacular contradictions in life. That a person can be resolute and receptive, dedicated and demanding, genuine and glorious all in one place is perfect. I think it takes faith to see these glorious contradictions in ourselves, to question those that do not serve us well, and to embrace those that make us enchanting.

If I had a limitless supply of money...

...I would buy all the old, deserted houses I find that can be saved and I would restore them.

I don't know what I would do with them after that. Perhaps leaving them upon the land where they were built would simply delay their demise. Maybe I could move them...after all, I have a limitless supply of money...to a town full of old houses that once graced the rural Iowa countryside.

I'd start with this place.

Politics

In this political season, I am struck by how easily our society is influenced by emotional ploys.



With that in mind, I offer an image that symbolizes to me our responsibility to the generations that follow us. We offer them a great disservice when we respond emotionally or based on personalities instead of logic. Logic requires critical questioning. While it is easier to be told how to think (ok, for many people...probably not the truest statement about me), we have a greater responsibility than to follow blindly.

Please, go find out what you think. Find out what is true and don't believe the emotional ploys politicians use to draw out feelings that blind your logic.

My Favorites on Flickr

I have a bunch of photographs 'favorited' on flickr.
Above is one example. I did not take the photo, this guy did.
I wish I took it, but it's in Michigan and I'm not.

This is only one of many, so go see these pictures.

They're awesome.