Ghost Town

"Arrested decay."

That's how it's described. South of Lake Tahoe, on the dusty plains east of the Sierra Nevadas, is the ghost town of Bodie.

In the late 1870's Bodie was a boomtown, swamped with miners in search of their fortune. But when the gold rush dwindled, the town began to decline. Two subsequent fires drastically reduced the town's footprint. Only the skeletal remains are left.

Rusted carcasses of old cars lie dormant by the roadside. The general store is still stocked with canned goods, there since 1912 when the doors last closed. A bank, a mortuary, and a Methodist church still stand, silently resisting the relentless force of heat, wind, and gravity. 

These days I too find myself filled with memories. Grateful for some. Beset by others. 

"There's a deep sense in which we are all ghost towns. We are all haunted by the memory of those we love. While they may no longer be with us, a faint aroma of their presence remains, a presence that haunts us until we let them go." - Peter Rollins

*The accompanying photograph is an interior shot of the town's abandoned schoolhouse; books still on the desks and math problems still scrawled the chalkboard.