A cold, rainy, snowy morning, socked in with fog . . .
reminded me of some early spring days back in the mountains of
North Carolina.
Those
Appalachian
spring mornings
could bring nearly anything . . .
from soft snow to piercing sleet to a week long blizzard and power outage.
They said it would always snow on
April 15th,
and it did,
every year for all the years I lived there.
When I moved to North Carolina,
I purchased a house which had originally been
a 100 year old barn.
Soaring ceilings, massive beams, huge stacked rock fireplace, steep, narrow staircase,
closet tucked beneath the slant of stairs.
The windows made of small, leaded, blown glass panels,
soaring 9 foot high,
recovered from an old inn which had burned down.
The house nestled in the midst of ancient forest in a tiny clearing,
bordered by a stream.
Behind, were the remains of an abandoned orchard and grape arbor.
One entire side was deck - lofty - peeking into the tops of the trees.
The bones of this house were perfect!
I felt my creative juices began to flow the moment I saw that house.
I knew immediately it had to be mine.
There was something so inviting, so harmonic, so completely romantic about it.
Was it the setting?
The light filtering through the trees was perfection.
The rustling of wind in those leaves?
Was it the repurposed nature of
barn turned house?
Perhaps.
The sound of the stream could lull me to sleep at night.
Rain on the old tin roof . . . ?
Wildflowers were all about . . . ivy growing along the front porch.
It was one of those days,
when I first laid eyes on that old place,
and knew it belonged to me,
or,
I belonged to it.
As if I was 'coming home to a place I'd never been before',
like John Denver sang.
There was artistry in the design and in the wavy old glass panes and in the site,
and it spoke to
the
artist
in my
soul.
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