Ghosts of Lives Past

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This haunting photo was a purchase I made recently from a little shop in Gold Hill, North Carolina, just a few minutes up the road from Stanly County. The shop was called "Jane's Thangs" and the owner's husband had made this photo on a trip near Abbington, Virginia.

Gold Hill is a restored historic gold mining town, began during the North Carolina Gold Rush, that many people have forgotten about. I went there during the recent event, 'Lighting of the Fall Fires'. Gold Hill is the kind of place you want to visit often, there is something for everyone.

This photo captivated me.

I can hear the voices of children playing and laughing just looking at it. I can imagine a large farm family full of work and woe and love and laughter, on the porch and in the yard, a mother looking caringly out a window, a father coming home, tired from the fields, looking for his supper.

To me, it's beautiful for more than the flowers. Long ago, some one built this structure to house a family.

I believe in genetic memory. If elephants can have it, why can't we. Dreams that are so real, they are more like memories. Traveling and getting the feeling that you've been here before, and logically knowing that you haven't. Could genetic memory account for that? Can we remember places and times our ancestors lived?
The way I am drawn to historic settings and certain areas of the state and the country, I believe this is true.

My trip to Virginia last year felt like home. I am descended from Virginians. Could the reason I was drawn to this picture mean a genetic memory captivated me?