Seeing With New Eyes

My brother lives in a convalescent hospital  right in the heart of Downtown LA. It's a poor neighborhood ,with a lot of graffiti & boarded up windows. The bus stops are packed with mother's & their children, the elderly with their shopping bags & random people just trying to get back & forth.

Everytime I go to visit Johnny, at some point my eyes are drawn to two abandoned houses that have been moved to a lot directly across the street from his hospital. I sit in my car & stare as my mind begins to wander...

where were these houses originally located,

who moved them to this awkward corner of LA,

why were they moved there & what plans do they have for them,

what did they look like when they were first built in all their glory,

were there grand family's living in them, all dressed in white,

on a hot summer day did children run in & out of the front door playing,

while their parents sat in wicker chairs on the front porch, 

does anyone else see the magic & beauty that I do,

or do they simply see old & crumbling houses?

I am reminded of a famous quote by Marcel Proust...

‘The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes.’

Johnny's out of the hospital & back to where he's called home for the past seven years. He is in hospice care now & I will visit tomorrow & the next day & I will think about the two old houses sitting across the street, all boarded up & covered with graffiti & I will believe in my heart...

there is a reason for everything under heaven.

XOXO

vintagesusie