Thursday, June 3, 2010

memory lane...come away with me

so..even though i m burried under a pile of work this week i headed out yesterday and made a little trip into the past...so i drove for about an hour through the first summer sun in days...i dont know why i did that...there is a urgent feeling lately to go back to places where i spent time when i was young..as well as getting back in touch with some people i didnt spoke to in about over ten years...people i so extremly miss...so i drove to this house...long ago in this mansion was some kind of artist collony...4-5 people who lived steadily there and about 5 or 6 more who were always coming and going...the house was already old by then...almost empty...furniture from the basemnet and the attic...a lot was done provisorical..but it was all clean and pretty...i used to come with my older cousin or with my oldest sister..by then i had given up painting allready and i wouldnt make any art anymore..but still i loved to be surounded by the artist friends i had...i would spent hours with laying in the garden...planting tulips and iris...sitting model...reading...picking spider webs from the candelabra in the hall...talking for hours and hours ...sitting on the roof working on my novel...with the evening and the cool evening breeze everything would slow down...we would carrie a pasting table onto the balkony...make pasta..wine...grey country bread...slices and chunks of raw fruits and vegetables...more wine...lighting candles because there usually wasnt any electricity in the house...and on we went with eating and talking...everyone was much older then i was...and it was all exiting for me...not only the creativity in this house but also its sexual tension which found its way into my novel...that summer seemed to be endless when i look backwards on it...when i flip through my diary from that time i m stunned by the ways i thought back them..what was important for me...

upstairs there was this huge room..almost like a ball room ...it had the only working fireplace aside the kitchen und high walls as well as a ceiling encrusted with broken stucco...gilbert und ceszare spend over a week painting the broken ceiling with a sky and clouds..oh so many clouds which had pink and golden edges as if the sun would go down in venice and touch the clouds with its golden burning dawning fingers...there we would sit by night...more wine...smoking..talking...kissing..touching...couples would set up...leave into other rooms...come back..leave with someone else maybe...smoking always made me tired..silent..so i would just sit there..with glowing eyes and marvel at the things arround me...i was in love with someone..but the time was complicated because i was with someone else...

it was just one summer but there is a whole life pressed between the pages of those days..in my mind i open the book of that time..and people and moments slip out between the pages like dried flowers from a diary...by the end of the summer we all left ..it was too cold in the old house without heating...strangely no oen really said goodbye...one by one left and moved on..so i did..moved away...and yesterday i came back...now immigrants do live in the house that is all whithered and broken now...i went arround it...i read the names on the mail boxes..i sneaked insid einto the stair case...heavy breathing...its wine cellar coolness welcomed me just as always..just like back then when i still was young and barefeet..skin kissed by the summer sun...a book under my arm..hair hanging sweaty into my face..on ym way to get something to drink...inside everything was dirty now..broken...the stair into the room with the painted ceiling was barraicaded and so i couldnt go there...still i could knock on the doors and count down of all the names and ghosts which are soaked into the walls of this house..sit down on the splintered stairs and remember all the feet which had went up and down them back in that summer...now its all gone...there was a round flower bed in front of the house full of roses and jasmin..gone...the tiled floor is dirty and dusty...and i was standing there..like a relict from another time...thinking of what i was teache dhere..what i had seen..what i had written there...thought of the beam in the attic where i had carved two name sinto the wood ..te amo i had whispered into the dusty summer light which came in through the dirty windows...te amo i had said when i had left the house so many years ago ....yesterday i stood there in the darkness..my mouth so dry...still..te amo i said again and left...


















16 comments:

Jo said...

Ah, Danielle. Beautiful. And you did upload 40 pictures :)

I'll send you a picture of the clouds I painted on Cassia's bedroom ceiling.

x

Ms. Moon said...

This is amazing. Pictures and story. It reminded me in a way of a house that many of us gathered in to live together by a bay near here. No electricity, people painting murals, cooking together. It is entirely gone now.
Don't you think that sometimes young people come together to form a sort of family, recreating and redefining that term?
Thank-you for sharing this with us. That gorgeous old house haunts me now.

Jo said...

See, maybe they're meant to go. It would be nice, to think we can live organically, and not burn too much trace of ourselves onto the world. Maybe every structure has its day and the space should be reclaimed, just leaving the vibrations behind.

N2 said...

Your words brought all the people from that summer back to life in the house, and will each time someone new reads them.

My first time here, and a great post to arrive at. Love the pictures of the mansion. x0 N2

Danielle said...

ah jo..i did!! the pics i mean..and still i have twenty more..<.-)

Danielle said...

ms moon..now i sooooo would love to have been there in your house back then...

and i think you have apoint with ur opinion about recreating a group in a family way!

Danielle said...

oh jo..thats an interesting thought..like..creating the ghost of the future...

Danielle said...

thank you N2:-)

i m glad the post did..when you said it brought them back to life i realised that possibly no one who lives there now has an idea what was going on in the house back then...

Craig Sorensen said...

You can just tell by looking at it, what a magnificent building it was in its time, and that it is stubbornly clinging to life. I love old ruins.

Thanks for sharing the excellent photos (I was glad that I was able to click on them and see them closer up.

Wonderful story behind the place too. Such rich memories.

Marina said...

"...i was in love with someone..but the time was complicated because i was with someone else...
it was just one summer but there is a whole life pressed between the pages of those days..in my mind i open the book of that time..and people and moments slip out between the pages like dried flowers from a diary..."

Hi sweetie - I loved every word, but especially this. You've had a very interesting and rich life, and it is beautiful that you hold all of your memories so closely.

And, love is a complicated thing....

And, I love old mansions....

Just perfect!

Anyway - I'm so glad to be seeing more of you! It always makes me smile!

Petit fleur said...

Old houses, candles, artists, food, sex. wine and cigarettes... What else is there?

I really enjoyed this one. Thanks for taking the break to go visit and to share.
Peace,
pf

Danielle said...

@ marina

ha..just when you comented i was on your blog to have alook if you have something new up there...

i m glad you d like my post and hope u ll be back to posting too..soon! because enjoyed ur posts always too:-)

Danielle said...

@ petit fleur

its a enchanting atmosphere yes? i hope ms moon will tell us about her similar expiriences too:-)

Jeremy Edwards said...

Fabulous essay!

I know what you mean about those "just one summer" types of times that loom large in memory, with so much emotion and experience packed into a short time.

Danielle said...

@jeremy...

yes! sometimes its just like that..its just a short time..but so emotional rich that it seems to be a whole life..

Mwa said...

What a gorgeous house. I hope you don't regret going back. I hate to see places I love all changed - the memory gets tainted.