autumn berries, slowly drying up.
i'm offering apologies for the long absence, i was on vacation for 2 weeks and as we all know, vacations are there to take a rest, and explore new places, and disconnect from social media, internet and everything related to it. or at least try to sit back for a while and enjoying what is immediately around you, taking in moments of joy and wonder, being there for family and friends. i am always so busy on vacation that i rarely have time to sit down to craft these blog posts, let alone even interacting with online friends. even though i feel a little guilty about that, i make it a priority to focus on staying in the moment and present when i am spending time away and with my family. it would absolutely exhaust me if i tried churning out stuff here, while at the same time wanting to spend time with loved ones and travelling to places. since being on vacations and spending time with my family is a thing of rarity for me, you can guess why i am making such a choice. i don't want to loose the connection to them and i don't want to waste my time sitting on a computer all day, when there are places to discover and memories to be made. i can do that all day long in my everyday life, when work is my biggest concern and i am too tired to do anything else.
these pictures are from a walk that etched itself into my mind as a very special one, where i felt full of love and endearment and satiated. my ex-lover and i decided to take a walk around the woods of ober-olm and he ended up showing me a place that he held very dear to his heart, an abandoned place with hidden surprises. him showing me this place felt like a huge trust offer, as it held memories for him of the past. it felt like a beautiful thing, to know that this place was so special to him and that he wanted me to see it. on that day i felt so incredibly connected, absolutely high on love and life.
( it is so strange to me to use ex-lover - but it feels like a good description, as using ex-boyfriend sounds like we were in it for a longer relationship, but since we were only dating approximately 3 months, i don't feel like boyfriend/girlfriend is the better use of terms here. 9 months after our fling ended, it exactly feels like one - a fling and i think a fling only deserves to be called a lover. but that's just my perception and maybe a way for me to look at it all with distance so i don't get too upset again over it all - it's my way to process it and it's been helpful. after all, i had thought that the fling would end up being something deeper and longer-lasting. i had opened up myself for this, let the walls crumble down so quickly that even i was surprised about it. me, who built her walls so high, that they sometimes were even too high for myself to jump over. anyways... back to main ).
like i said, this place is a special one and i think i will probably never return here without having created a certain distance to the memories attached. maybe i will return eventually, but for now this is the last time i will see it and remember it. at least for quite a little while. until time has completely covered the tracks.
the fields surrounding the woods are agricultural lands, where you can find fruit trees, cornfields & vegetable patches.
we mostly walked along the edges of the woods, enjoying the late september sun.
a rose-shaped mushroom.
i also discovered a dragonfly flying randomly over the fields, sitting down on warm stones. i think this one might be an older female common darter, but i could be wrong, since i am no expert. i just know that this species flies until october, and it's one of very few dragonfly species that can still be found around this time of year.
i've never stumbled on pumpkin patches before, and i was all over the moon when coming upon one! all that orange lifts my autumn loving heart up!
i like this photo too much to let it rot away on my drive.
i wanted to steal a pumpkin, but decided against it. maybe the farmers set up some hidden camera somewhere and would eventually find me out. that kept me from actually doing it and the fact that me even considering stealing is unheard of. too much of an obedient citizen i am ;)
the grounds around the borders of the forest were peppered with acorns, too! another characteristic of autumn.
we slowly approached the special location.
those lichen-covered trees 😍 never get tired of all the rustic colours of lichen.
and then we eventually reached the location - i think i can safely tell you that this place was formerly a little horse ranch.
the neon-orange painted door to one of the small buildings caught your eye immediately. but also the many little stick figures on the facade! it looked so bright and friendly.
inside you could definitely see that the building was a horse stable once.
the inspiration for this post's title. so true in so many ways. looking at it now it feels like it was an indication of what was to happen eventually. an admonishment to enjoy what you have today, because tomorrow might already be the end. it's something that i will try to heed, always keep it in the back of my mind.
the view outside the horse stable.
the inhabitant of this box was probably a horse called mr. ed. it's a very fine name, isn't it?
in some spots the roof was in very bad shape, but that allowed for some brightly lit corners!
in one of my last posts i told you about the sad girl, or maria. imagine my surprise when i discovered that the place not only sported one but TWO of them! i thought of this as extraordinary, because it meant that the creator was enamoured with this place enough to come back another time and create a second maria. these girls can be found all over the region, but rarely twice in a very close vicinity. she fit so well into these surroundings, with her melancholic stare and her colourful appearance.
the light beautifully illuminated these glass shards in one of the windows.
here's the second one, only a few meters away, in a light-filled part of the stable. i also liked the eye directly next to her, watching us watching them.
seriously i never wanted to leave this space. it was so magical and warm and there was not an inch of sadness everywhere. the whole place was comforting, even in its decrepit state.
randomly found these mirror shards on the ground and wanted to document what was shown in them. trees were hovering over the stable, shadowing it with leaves that slowly turned yellow.
i like how in the previous picture the shards show a sharp canopy of leaves but in this one the shards themselves are clear and the leaves blurred. such a nice effect! i think i now want to document mirrors more often and create similar pictures, showing what they reflect and where they reflect their hidden wonders! sounds like a cute idea!
the canopy of leaves i spoke of before.
these lama/alpaca figurines showing each other some big love was THE mood of the day.
i don't know what an aluminium foil-covered chair was doing there, i can't even imagine why one should cover a chair with it in the first place, but it surely felt quite alien and random.
close-up of the eye.
and close-up of the utterly beautiful face of maria number 2.
another face was greeting us in one of the corners, this time though it was a sorrowful one, with deep lines on its forehead and a quivering mouth. the contrast of this face with the upbeat colours was striking.
the structure of this rusty door fascinated me quite a bit.
X.
here's the face of the first maria. she was a little more intricate and elaborate in her execution.
i couldn't stop taking pictures of them. here i stand next to the first maria, taking a shot of the second one.
and both of them in one picture ❤
light and shadow creating geometrical patterns inside the horse boxes.
this part of the stable was basically destroyed. i wondered how, over all these years of visiting and revisiting this place from the past, it must have felt to my companion. he watched this property change over time, each time probably finding a new change to the structure. i think he loved that people took the old walls as a canvas for beautiful street art, but i think it must also be heart-breaking to see a place falling apart that you tie nice memories to.
another building was painted with joyful images, peace signs and birds flying over fields towards the sun.
the picture on the left was my favourite, with the kitten and the bird. but also, the one with the tree.
this was probably some sort of bathroom once, but the chair was so absolutely out of place that it made you wonder. i think it was either a car or a plane seat, either options offered no solution to why and how it found its way there.
inside the chicken coop. at least i thought of this part as a chicken coop. there are still some agricultural machineries on the ground, even tractors.
paint chipping off wood. another structure i am attracted to for mysterious reasons.
on the left is the building with the red images, in the back you can see the horse stable. this is my last shot of the property. looking at it still makes me feel a warmthness in my heart that stands in contrast to the sting that also is still apparent, albeit subdued. the warmth overpowers it mostly, and i am thankful for that. the memory of this place will stay a good memory, and i think that's an important realization. it means i can move on and should move on and look at our experience in a favourable way. it might've not worked out for some reason or another, but the memories we created, i look at them in benevolence. maybe it's been different for him, maybe he already saw our mismatches even then, but for me, i was blissfully blind to it all and i am still in awe sometimes that my memory saved our time together as a mainly splendid one, with little hick-ups that still feel minuscule to me.
i choose to look at it this way: if it wasn't meant to be, it wasn't meant to be. maybe other and greater love will await me, or maybe not. maybe i'll stay on my own and will try my best to make it a nourishing solo journey, which is what i am doing now, focussing on self-acceptance and discovery. the biggest realization for me was, that some things are not within my hands, that no matter how hard you try to give your best, it sometimes won't be enough and there's nothing you can do about it. you can only take the shards of the broken object and then use them to create something different, put together a new approach to life towards more acceptance and self-discovery.
we continued our stroll after a while...
... found some very pink foliage...
... and ended up on macabre grounds, full of bones and remains of dead deer. the space we found seems to have been some hunter's shooting range, which would explain the masses of remains everywhere. here's a warning before you continue: we found some very fresh body parts and if you are squeamish you probably shouldn't continue to read or choose to do a very quick scroll further down.
a single hoof, looking so very frail and tragic.
jawbones could be found everywhere on the grounds.
i have a similar jawbone at home ( i completely forgot where i found it - sometimes i think i found it on this day, but other times i think it's been on a whole different occassion ), and i always wondered what kind of animal it had belonged to, and i'm about 90 percent sure now that it was a deer or a stag.
it was strange walking in this part of the woods, over these grounds, a cemetary of some sorts. it felt eerie and sad and we didn't stay long. even though dead things and death in general doesn't scare me too much and i am open-minded towards these things, walking over so many bones did have a bitter taste to it, even if it was 'just' animals. maybe because we knew that this place was a man-made thing, a part of the woods where deers were purposefully lured to it, to then shoot them down where they were most vulnerable. it showcased the predatory character of humankind and i think that was an uncomfortable realization for the both of us.
i soon tried to focus on brighter things again - like this exceptionally beautiful coloured leaf...
...and other autumnal foliage.
thus ended a day of mostly good and very few sad memories.
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