"palace" is a relative term. . .
just the other day, I discovered a personal note (from myself) in a book. following some kind of new age whim, I had listed my heart's desires in red marker on a small slip of paper. maybe I did that over a year ago: my long term relationship having recently disappeared, I was marooned in feelings of abandonment and loss. . . it was a good exercise: to wish upon new things and then let it go.
so, the note reappeared by accident. (actually, someone else found it. . .he said he didn't read it. . .)
the re-read was not too embarrassing--not as bad as re-reading journals from junior high. . .I list the usual desire for love and travel and artmaking. . .but at the bottom of the list, I add something rather curious :
"to live in a palace : )"
so, this new friend (the one who found the note) invited me to Cartersville on a real estate adventure this past weekend, where I got to walk through just such an empty suburban palace on a very sunny day.
(I thought it was an interesting synchronicity)
here are the pictures:
the bones of the old farmland shined through the suburban complex, now aging comfortably without the pressure of imminent development.
pools, grandiose sheds, comfortable lounging porches, generous windows over master bedroom tubs, Palladian grand entrances that lead through the house and out to unused fields. here, was a picture of how the crash intervened to create a modified country setting. no doubt, the neighbors live in their own private palaces, in a sort of quiet paradise, . . . which I found oddly appealing.
on the way home, large lots cleared for subdivisions now blossom with new pines and fluffy native aster. someone flew a remote-control toy plane over another field just as we drove out in the late afternoon sun. it flipped and turned with incredible precision. it dashed straight up into the sky until gravity got the best of it and pulled it back down to earth.
