The Old Barn

It’s been standing there, at the end of the road, for so many years it’s lost count. It’s watched generations grow up, get old, and raise new generations. It used to serve a purpose: to a family who built it from the ground up, it meant survival. It meant warmth and safety for the animals that they decided would live there. It was a well-loved and glorious thing back in those days.

Now it is just as marvelous as it always was. Deep down, it still serves the same purpose of protecting living creatures from the elements, giving them somewhere to call home. It is still appreciated; there are many that are not only thankful, but eternally grateful in their core for the fact that it is still standing despite its not having been tended to or mended in years, for they would have no home without it.

The old barn stands through the snow, sleet, hail, rain, in the harsh heat of the summer sun as its rays beam down on its exterior and roast them to a temperature so high even the squirrels avoid running across the roof in those peak hours of the day. The barn stands despite the vines that slowly creep up over the years and overtake the side that once was used for the display of grand banners and murals, coated in fresh, shining layers of paint. These radiant designs prominently displayed the values of the family who made their home here. The vines make a statement as well: they say, “now that no one’s stopping us, we will win this battle. You hardly even put up a fight now.”

A red squirrel scurries across the middle beam of the rafters, hurrying to its corner home to add to its collection of acorns and other found treasures that it has been storing up for colder days to come when food such as this will not be so easy to locate. It has been holding this nut in its mouth for the entirety of the long journey from the edge of the forest, across the field, up the side of the barn, through the thick tangle of vines - which both serve as an aid, making it easier to scale the vertical siding and a cover, protecting the squirrel, by shielding its home, as well as a hindrance, slowing down its already difficult trek as it crawls and pushes its way through the tangles to make it inside - and across the balance beams that make up a large portion of what’s still in tact of the building this particular red squirrel has called home its entire life.

The barn knows this squirrel well, remembers the day it was born here, just as well as it remembers the busy, interesting lives of its parents and grandparents and quite a few generations that came before it.

The squirrel, tired from its journey, decides it needs to rest after exerting that much energy in such a short amount of time. A burst like that requires an equally-as-intense nap session to follow in order to balance it out. The barn understands this need. The old barn knows all about balance. It wouldn’t still be standing today if it didn’t. The construction that originally made it structurally sound and stable kept it standing for decades, but for the past several, much of the credit for the fact that it hasn’t crumbled to the earth is owed to the balance it has learned to maintain with the world around it. The old barn has survived, thrived even, for this long because it knows that it needs to live harmoniously with those around it, there is simply no other way. While the vines think that they are winning a fight with the barn, they are really helping the barn to stand, supporting it in just the right places and pulling it just enough, just as much as the barn is serving as the perfect trellis for the vines to climb ever closer to the sun. That squirrel, may think that it is being selfish, collecting food to sustain itself through the winter, disregarding the needs of any other creature that may be around, but the weight that the shells provide in that upper back corner help pull the old barn just enough in that direction as well, supporting it just the amount it needs in precisely the right location to ensure the barn stays upright and level. The old barn needs the little red squirrel in order to stay standing just as much as the squirrel needs the barn to stay warm and safe and dry. Though they may not realize what they mean to the old barn, for the barn lets them think that they are the ones benefiting solely out of this arrangement, the truth is they are all integral to each other's lives. Their destinies are intertwined, entangled in a web which when pulled in one direction or another, affects them all to some degree. The barn likes this arrangement. It is reminded of its youth, when it had a similar type of relationship with the family who built it. Thinking of its “better days” it smiles, and settles down for the night, resting as the rest of the daytime world, including the red squirrel, does the same. As it does so, it looks forward to tomorrow’s sunrise and another day.

[It knows that they are all so precious and cannot be counted on. We are all here by chance, supporting each other, propping each other up and pulling each other down, sometimes unknowingly, but when we have the choice, we should choose to help one another. The barn knows this is caring. I wish more of us in this world were like the old barn.]