Hello Friends,
During the Easter holidays, I felt the need to turn off from the world and recharge my batteries. I went for a drive through the bush (what Australians call a forest or woodland) and had a picnic lunch with family.
Being out in nature is sunny and peaceful. The chatter of birds was all around us. The time in the woodland slowed down my busy thoughts and had a calming effect.
We talked to some people who were towing a caravan to spent their holiday in nature. We stopped at an old stone-built hotel that had been burnt out by fire. I walked around the security fencing seeing the brick fireplace and chimney were still intact. The roof had collapsed in the fire. The walls were still standing and made of honey brown stone blocks. Timber poles were braced against the walls to help support them.
I remember visiting the hotel once before the fire. Hanging on the walls around the fireplace were items from the small village’s history. They were lost to the fire. The village had always struggled to survive due to a lack of water. The hotel had been a general store, a meeting place, as well as a pub selling alcohol and cooked meals.
It seemed that after the fire, people had left the village to live somewhere else. There was a deserted atmosphere and while I drove around the two tiny streets, they didn’t look like streets and had become dirt tracks returning to nature's care.
I wondered what future waited for the historic hotel. Would it ever be rebuilt and bring the small village alive again? The tarpaulin stretched across the roof in a back section of the building and the timber props against the walls suggested that someone still cared about the burnt-out shell of the hotel.
I reflected on the struggles of this place laid bare before my eyes and then my own. The world seems to be changing quickly. Everyday. Change is now more normal than not. On reflection, the seemingly constant life of my parents and grandparents was change happening at a slower pace than now.
As we hurtle toward a technological future, life doesn’t stop. Remnants of the past like the old roofless hotel can be rebuilt in new ways for new purposes and new life. We can let go of the past too. Change and grow into a new version of ourselves. It could be exciting!
Photo Credit: Farshid Zabbahi on unsplash.com
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