the inglewood barn

All I ever want to do is press a banjo to my beating heart and strike the strings. When I am out in the city, I feel as if I am standing at a yield sign, only pausing for a moment to be social and brave, until I can return to my beloved banjo and make birds and bullfrogs fly out of it.

I wasn't always this way. It used to be reading and poetry that made me feel at home. I could sit for hours on the bedroom floor reading stories between sunlight and shadow. My favorite ones were always dark, they had the power to dampen the page from the tears of a reader. I did not want light houses or love stories, I wanted sorrow and madness because it made me feel real. I wanted life and all of its honest glory to be written into the sentences of every book.

I want to press a banjo to my beating heart for the same reasons. When I am playing a tune, I feel as if I am standing at the edge of earth overlooking a valley far below. There is moonlight and sunlight, there is stillness and chaos. I could never perfectly describe it and you wouldn't know it until you visit there too. You don't have to be a musician or a singer to feel it, you just have to be listening. When you get there, you'll find a stronger pull towards life than daylight pouring through a bedroom window. It is in these moments where you come closer to the meaning of a life well lived, to be awake and not sleeping, to be singing and not silenced. Listen to your favorite music and you will know.

We took these photographs in front of the white barn of Inglewood, a local neighborhood here in Calgary. The barn was used for storing horses when people were traveling through town, now it sits under lock and key. As much as I love going to where trees grow wide and flowers sprout from the ground, it sure is nice to find history and take photographs beside it, even if that means standing upon city sidewalks. There is beauty to see and songs to be sung from country to town, from mile to mountain, from sorrow to showing teeth, from today until tomorrow.

Keep on singing your own song.

 

outfit details: Chicwish dress, Oasap petal wedges, Chinese Laundry tights, Value Village coat & sunhat

location details: Inglewood in Calgary, Alberta, Canada