3 min read

Brick by Brick

Everyone has stories to tell. Everyone. From the oldest to the youngest, we have these experiences that are bubbling within us that need…
Brick by Brick

Everyone has stories to tell. Everyone. From the oldest to the youngest, we have these experiences that are bubbling within us that need some outlet. Part of growing up is learning how to weave these narratives together into a social fabric, becoming part of a greater whole. From the egocentric moments of babies and toddlers, to the exocentric concerns of the tweenage and teenage years, to the heady mix of all of the above in adulthood, each carries a story worthy of telling.

In the course of my wanderings on Sunday, I ran across this old warehouse and a bridge in a section of Barre, Massachusetts that I’d never been before. You’d be hard pressed to find Barre on a map without engaging the search bar but, it’s a core town to the north-central part of Massachusetts and has a legacy of industrialization. I drove by this edifice initially, paying it only scant attention because I had places to go, undriven roads to conquer! Yet something compelled me to turn back around and observe more closely.

One of the side benefits of shooting in black and white is that you enable the ability to rip subtlety right off the table. It’s akin to removing that blue and white gingham table cloth your grandmother always had laid on the dinner table and finding out there’s a beautiful patinad oak table lying underneath.

The compulsion to turn around was rewarded by a history that wouldn’t have been so apparent had I not stepped foot onto the worn concrete lining the bridge and former warehouse space. It required pausing, considering, looking past the ready facade of rehabilitation and into the darkened mirror of the past.

These bricks that were delaminating from each other, falling into the river in blackened pitch-like torpidity, each splash resounding with an echo of perhaps tens of decades of neglect and disuse. The undisturbed waters of the Prince River flowing under the rotting iron of a bridge once used to carry steam and water, fluidics powering the factory or mill that once stood in this place.

These are stories from before my time but they’re here for the retelling and reimagining.

At the core of each of our stories, then, lies the simplest of building foundations: us. We are the bricks that are built upon, each experience leading to the next brick, mortared together with the tears and laughter, the joys and the pains, the heartaches and ecstacies of each moment. They’re not perfect but together, they fit; each seam crafted by the patient sculptor of time and experience, each worn or roughened edge the palette for a mason’s gentle touch.

In the new year, I want to explore these stories, these bricks of experience, together with you. I want you to give voice to your buildings by the river, the mortared bricks you’ve assembled by yourself or with others, and to give you the joy of knowing that one day, others will be given cause to stop, turn around, and consider the life you’ve lived, the narratives you’ve created, and the hope that springs eternal from you.

May it ever be so.