Days of yore ...

In a way it is fun how the same thing can totally change its meaning based on the perspective you're looking at it. When I was still in school I had a deep hate for history. I thought it was one of the most boring and annoying subjects a pupil could undergo. All those dates and empty names of battles and meaningless blablablah .... Then with my family we moved first in a small medieval town in Tuscany and later relocated here in the far north in a traditional wooden house which is more or less 110 years old. My wolfpack of five kids are not in school so we have so much time to spend together learning new things, and through their inquiring eyes and thoughts I started understanding the beauty of looking back. Not battles nor names,but way of living, way of doing things, of loving things. Perspective shift. Endless questions on the line of 'how was when they didn't have street lights ? Can you imagine northern lights how scaring could be in the total darkness of northern winter ?' and so on... and all of a sudden history became us, history became almost a longing for a truer life, in which humans needed to prove their worth in the every day pursuits, even the more simple ones. The other day I went in the barn with my two youngest, and while the second young was telling the little one all the wonders that used to happen there in the days of yore, I took a few pictures of beautiful details. Unfortunately the barn is not the original one anymore, but it is anyhow very old.