Come Away to the Water

Come away little lass, come away to the water. . .

~Glen Hansard

The rain is so, so rainy.  I don't think there are other words.  I met a thru-hiker yesterday who told me that even his food was wet.  He asked me about the weather.  I said, "Well, it's supposed to be good on Sunday."  "It's only Wednesday," he said.  Poor guy.  I know he got a ride to a shuttle, and from there?   I wonder if the rain hasn't driven a number of AT hikers off with its unrelenting presence.

Us, without tents and sleeping bags, we have kept on keeping on.  None of us seem to really care that it rains.  The children were thrilled to sit by the foggy valley and eat their sandwiches.  We were at Grayson Highlands State Park, after all, and there was the promise of ponies and waterfalls.  Seems the ponies must have escaped, or someone left the gate open. . .

We had our sights set on Cabin Creek Falls, and this was the perfect day for it.  Every day has a little bit of perfect in it, if you look for it.  Sometimes, you have to look backwards to see it.  Anyway, this trail had "several stream crossings" which turned out to be most of the trail.  We dodged the terrible rain that has flooded Western NC, but we've still been plenty wet.

And here are the falls.  With my zoom lens, I can't do a whole lot, but you can see other photos here on my instagram.  They are about 25' high, and there are cascades that go on for some time, which is really breath-taking in person.  It was gorgeous.  As always, there was a wet rock to sit on and take in the view.  I always take great care, too, to stress to the children how very dangerous waterfalls are.  Nature school, you know, awe with an ounce of caution.

This was the trail leading from the falls along the Cabin Creek loop.  It was either sheer rock face or a set of tree root stairs.  The trail became even more rocky and boulder-ly for a bit longer.  I told Roan I expected goblins or trolls to come out of the rocks at any time, just like in The Hobbit.  Soon enough, we began a gentle climb back to the meadow and the ponies at Massey Gap.

Here's a little sticker I got in the mail.  I'm doing a 52 Hike Challenge for 2018, invited by Stacey.  I'm up to nine, starting at the end of April as it was convenient.  I seem to average 2-3 hikes a week right now, so I'm not too worried about meeting my goal by the end of the year.  Hiking and walking feed my soul right now, and I work in some every single day, rain or shine.  I told Willow that hiking would be a great treasure for her some day, and I hope that prediction comes true.  The land has so much to teach us.

High on a Mountain

Clouds so swift,
The rain's pouring in . . .

~"You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" :: Bob Dylan

Despite a dismal forecast, I hauled us up to Whitetop for our own little holiday.  It was raining, and had been raining, but the air cleared as we sat in the car having some cake.  Traipsing through wet grass and huge puddles (moats?), we watched a gentle breeze send the fog away.

See?  It was so lovely!  There was no chill in the air at all, though I don't guess I could have felt it through the sweater and raincoat.  We met up with some guys who were old high school buddies, reuniting on Whitetop after forty years.  They loved Roan's stories of knives, cap guns, vintage toys, and obscure mining history.

It was such a good day to be up there. Everyone we met was in high spirits, perhaps because the weather had turned so swiftly. That is the way of it in the High Country. It's hard to make firm guesses about conditions, but I think that is part of the fun, if you are ready for it. 

 

Nature School :: His Place

This little smiley fellow rode up those old, steep, ever-shrinking roads to see his mountain yesterday.  Six years have passed since this first photo, but he still just as quick to give a grin.

We had in mind to experience something beyond the rhododendron gardens, which was a good thing.  They were closed!  We walked up the Appalachian Trail into the spruce-fir forest over some very interesting trail construction.  It's obvious erosion and foot traffic are big issues in the sensitive habitat.

We ate lunch with baby trees, of course, on a mostly wet rock.  The bigger trees are alive, but their growth is at the top.  It is a comfort to see the future at their feet.

Coming out of the woods, we set our sights on Round Bald, which is across the road from the saddle called Carver's Gap where everyone parks.  I couldn't pass up this photo of Roan.  We gave a couple dollars to keep his (and your) mountain beautiful before we climbed the hill.

Sitting on a big rock, which must be The Place, we took in all the views.  Roan High Knob sits to the right there, not quite in the photo.  The road curving upward leads to the Rhododendron Gardens and the former site of the Cloudland Hotel.  Many things hinge on Memorial Day around these parts, so we were just a little too early.

My dad says that flying over our area in a plane helps you to see how sparsely populated it really is.  Views like this do that, too, I think.  I need all the big views I can get these days. 

Rivers and Streams

With the lark in the morning
And the dew upon the dawn
Well, a-home we came a crawling
With our sickness and our song

~"McCormack's Wall" :: Glen Hansard 

Most mornings, I take a walk to my special places right outside my door.  I walk through the wet grass to the fruit trees, remembering and dreaming.  Music has been my nearly constant companion, and I do often carry my phone with Spotify playing (yes! I have a phone now!).  If Glen Hansard has had anything to do with it, I've been listening to what he's had to sing.  At least one of them even became prophetic for me.  I first learned of him when NPR covered the excitement around Once back in 2007.  The songs drifted in and out, but they were always there in the background.  I guess songs that stare hard feelings in the eyes are the kind of soundtrack I need right now. 

I don't know what I am trying to say here, what I am trying to filter out or include.  There is no sadness in leaving an awful marriage.  There is sadness in cleaning up what is left over, in starting again after such a long time.  I get told how brave I am, and I think that I had no other choice.  There was no one else to do it.  I am weary.  I have become more social, more pro-active, tougher.  I have felt that I needed to be purposeful in my actions, since life felt more like things that happened to me, rather than I things I chose.  That has had mixed results, of course, as putting ourselves out there opens us up to risks.  All the same, it is good to take them.  I'd hate for my life to pass and think that I had not tried.

I guess I am still waiting for the next step to find me, even though I have taken so many steps into the future.  There's a song for that, of course.

Between Showers

May!  The rainy month!  But, oh, how lush and green everything is growing.  It is hard to believe it was all bare three weeks ago.  Yesterday, we went up to Elk Garden to see the sights.  In spite of the humidity and passing clouds, it was fog-free!

Okay, there was a little fog on Mount Rogers, but that's to be expected.  I don't think I've mentioned that this is our state's highest peak at 5729'.  It's around 7-9 miles round trip from any approach and the summit is entirely covered in a sort of relic boreal forest.  Just my kind of place!  It's on my list to return later this year.

Yesterday, however, we followed the Appalachian Trail just into the woods, after a little bouldering for the children.  I met a lovely couple who had me take their picture, and we exchanged our stories of this wonderful place where we live.  Even though 30 or more years separated us, we agreed the mountains never leave you. 

Into the forest, to the place the children have named "Brambly Hedge."  What a lovely carpet of Spring flowers, so pleasant to walk through.  Not a stinging nettle in sight!

And then, back towards the trailhead and home.  These weathered wooden posts and wind-beaten hawthorn trees will never leave me, either.

If this is any indication of all the rain we've gotten, here's the delightful little waterfall that the AT was yesterday.  Those are the stairs leading into the woods toward Whitetop. 

Every stream was rushing and roaring, water was flowing across the roads.  I just wanted to lay down in a creek and let it flow across me.

Transitions

I registered the children for public school yesterday.  It wasn't something I thought I'd ever do.  I'm the kind of person to make a decision and see it through until the bitter end.  But this one wasn't that.  Life these days is about making my own choices, seeing I have options, taking up new things because I want to.  That sounds oversimplified, and I guess it is.  When I write things here, there are many layers to my words, things I could never say. 

Really, it was happy moment when I made the decision.  I know I have given my all to my children for nearly ten years now.  What they need from me is different now.  What I need is different.  I need to work, of course, and to stand on ridge tops, and to share what I have with others.  My world is getting bigger and smaller at the same time.  I am learning to be patient, to be okay with open ends, and to tie up others.

I always like to know where I am going, but that's not a part of things any more.  I can't explain it with any accuracy, but I guess it is a universal experience for this kind of thing.  It feels nearly impossible to tell people how I don't want my old life, how glad I am now, how so many old burdens have fallen away, and how the new responsibilities do feel like very heavy things.  I know what I have now, and where I have been.  Oh, that is so freeing and so terrifying. 

Topophilia

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness . . .
 
When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

~Maya Angelou :: "A Brave and Startling Truth"

A love of place seems to surround all I do lately.  I share places with people, like they are favorite songs or prized possessions.  I talk about places, I visit them, I avoid them, I cling to them, I daydream about them.  I lay myself bare to places.  I redefine them.  I walk into them with my fears cast aside, and then return when I am broken, seeking healing.

Even though I love the land, it is the people who have shared that land with me that give another level of meaning to my places.  My life has had some very deeply intense moments in it lately, ones that have taken every bit of bravery that I could muster.  This whole year has been so unexpected to me.  It seems everything I have know has been turned on its ear.

I have reached great heights, tall peaks with grand views, only to find myself in the valley all over again.  My heart feels as though it might burst.  I have to remember, even with all my topophilia, to keep going back to my places.

Dawn

I arise from rest with movements
swift as the beat of a raven's wings.
I arise to meet the day.

My face is turned from the dark of night
to gaze at the dawn of day,
now whitening in the sky.

~Iglulik Eskimo Poem :: Wassail! Wassail!  Early American Christmas Music

So many beautiful sunrises this week.  I have been listening to a lot of Glen Hansard and The Swell Season lately.  He's a wonderful live performer, and somewhere he said that happy days are often blank in journals.  I do some private writing these days, but I completely understand what he says.  There are things that are so hard to put into words.  All the same, I've felt some documentation was essential.  Pardon my silence and poetry, but know that I am so very happy.

Come wind, come rain, we're off again
Our muddy boots plod down the lane
The snow has snowed, now the grass has growed
And it's time that we were on the road

~ Vashti Bunyan

We took a little excursion with Katherine yesterday, up to Hidden Valley Lake.  The road to our beloved Laurel Bed Lake washed out in the Winter rains, so this was our consolation.  The area has more open views, but we stuck to the lake this time around.  I do hope to go back and take in the sights, and maybe that will happen this Summer.  All the same, our children enjoyed the very wet conditions and the plethora of tea berries growing by the woods.  They had games of hide and seek that ended with Laurel meeting up with the mire, but we cobbled together new clothes for her.  The battery on my car died, miles from anywhere, but I was able to flag down help on the lake road and we were soon on our way.  It was a beautiful day to break down and we were a merry bunch, in spite of it all.

Pause

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gyspy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

~"Sea-Fever" ~ John Masefield :: As taken from The Waldorf Book of Poetry

The children saw the ocean for the first time on Sunday.  It was both new and old to me, as I hadn't been in such a very long time.  We camped right in front of the water at a place that goes back to my mother's childhood.  It was a trip that left me feeling torn--I was anxious to keep on with things here.  I knew getting away was needed, like the final step of a long walk or an intersection between trails.  I'll call it a pause, then, a chance to spend some time in daydream and reflection before getting back to work.

I'm now a "long walks on the beach" person, and I took one at the end of nearly every day.  I went under the guise of photographing my dad's kites in action.  The waves gave a wonderful backdrop to my own thoughts and small revelations.  I think people see my situation as a very sad one, but it isn't.  It's glaringly, staggeringly hope-filled.  I have to stop myself from running wildly into the future.

Coming back to the mountains, back to feeling "hemmed in" again, was emotional.  Willow teased me a little, but I do so love this place.  It really is forever a part of me, as much as some other places beckon me to visit.