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.