Fields & edges, so plain & miraculous

a few days in the Blue Ridge Mountains

This weekend my husband, daughter, and I drove to Asheville, North Carolina, to spend a few days with our South Carolina family. We’ve been making this mountain trip with Todd’s parents, his brother and sister-in-law, and their kids since Thalia was a baby and my two redheaded nieces were not yet born, with the exception of one pandemic fall and last year, when the area was still reeling from the ravages of Helene.

My in-laws’ generosity and their commitment to family tradition has nurtured my love for Western North Carolina, and along with it, my daughter’s. At dinner the other night, I raised a glass in thanks, acknowledging that were it not for these gatherings, Thalia probably wouldn’t be focusing her college search largely on North Carolina schools. Thalia quipped that she should get honorary in-state status. Wouldn’t that be nice.

This was actually the third visit Todd, Thalia, and I have made to AVL since Hurricane Helene hit the region. A number of people have asked me how recovery is going. I’ve told them what I’ve observed: Downtown Asheville, and even the River Arts District, show remarkable resilience and energy. But I can’t speak to what’s happening outside this narrow perimeter. So when I had a chance to chat with a Waynesville local over the weekend, I turned the question on him. Immediately I sensed hurt in his voice as he acknowledged that he and his husband had plenty of privilege, and he could point to ways in which recovery was proceeding apace. But the fact was, many people were not doing well at all. In places like Swannanoa and Black Mountain, things were still bleak. I understood the anger and self-loathing that inscribed his response. If I lived here, mine would be the same. In the next breath he and a few other locals mentioned how uplifting the show of community support has been. I thought back to the end of last September, when I watched the crisis unfold from afar and did what I could to help by way of donations. At the end of this month, it will have been one year.

In the afternoon I wandered to the meadow-edge of the house on Bobcat Lane, a sunny spot full of abundant wildflower color that you could say was summer’s final hurrah, or autumn’s first hello. Peak leaf season gets all the buzz, but early September is an equally magical time in the Blue Ridge: The morning air crisp, cool enough for sweatshirts but warm enough for bare legs. The goldenrod was beginning its big fountain-y, trident-y emergence all over the region, and the roadside fields were showy with an abundance of yellow asters, too. There were white frostings of boneset and wild carrot, purple flashes of beautyberry and ironweed, orange and red speckles of jewelweed, and the dusty rose of Joe-Pye weed, the bobbing heads sought out by swallowtail butterflies.

beautyberry ombré

In the early years of our annual visits, I didn’t even notice goldenrod. I didn’t know Joe-Pye weed, or the history of calamitous flooding in Western North Carolina. I didn’t think about my daughter getting a taste for the region that would influence her future, even though I myself am a Carolina graduate. It’s funny, preposterous even, how much we fail to see—until, finally, we do, after which the sight is both plain and miraculous, obvious and remarkable, never to be missed or forgotten. I’ll always celebrate the blossoming of goldenrod now, and be sure to praise it with my attention. I’ll never again think blithely of Asheville as a “climate refuge.” Helene, for all her wrath, has made me see the region with new eyes—namely, how little of it I really know, or how much I have yet to learn and give to. I would never wish for such a terrible disaster to befall this beautiful place, but I can listen to what it has to tell me.

I found a few new places to delight in on this visit to WNC. We drove over to Hendersonville one day for the North Carolina Apple Festival, and on the road there through Fletcher passed Lulu’s Consignment Boutique. This was a mighty fine, locally owned secondhand shop, well-organized and spacious and clean, with good prices and a Labor Day sale on top of that. I got a striped shirt and an olive green cashmere duster that Thalia describes as a Mom Coat. I suspect it will be my WFH uniform over the winter, paired with a bandana and soft pants.

On our way out of town this morning, we stopped for coffee at Daymoon Coffeebar in Fairview, NC. Inside we found not just coffee drinks but a super-sweet curated selection of books for sale. The t-shirts for sale read “Daymoon Coffee & Books,” and I found out that the books side of things started earlier this year, as a post-Helene fundraiser for Fairview Library, which suffered budget cuts after the storm. Daymoon also stocked greeting cards, stickers, and beans from local roaster PennyCup Coffee. Paper dolls danced along the pastry case, from which I tried a wedge of strawberry-poppyseed coffee cake, just the sort of sweet I was craving. I picked up a copy of a free, arts-scene mag called The Laurel of Asheville, learned about cover artist Kevin Andrew, whose take on floral representation enchanted me, and bid a fond see-ya-later to my favorite place, one where I regularly imagine some kind of next chapter. Back in Nashville, it’s still summer-warm, but the tickseed is super-blooming in Shelby Bottoms and the goldenrod will be right behind it.

Now for a September Write-a-thon!

The time I’ve put into writing today’s FIELD TRIP (riding shotgun on the interstate!) is my first go at a goal of 30 hours of writing in September, part of The Porch’s inaugural Write-a-Thon. This is a fun, motivational community project for anyone who wants to write and a fundraiser for our scholarship program. It’s not too late for you to join us. There will be prompts, an online discussion space where a bunch of us will be active (I’ve already posted a few prompts there), and IRL write-ins at the Porch House in Nashville. Let’s go!

Songs for the week (Songs FTW!):

Somehow I got on a PJ Harvey kick this past week. That’s never a bad thing. I revisited Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, which I realized I’d never held in high-enough regard; her first two albums have always had an iron grip on my heart. But damn, it’s so good.

Next up, For Dancing in Quiet Light, a dreamy new recording from Nashville’s god of the ambient pedal steel, Luke Schneider. Here, take a sound bath. Golden September insists.

Thanks for reading, thanks for listening, thanks for comin’ along. If you enjoyed this field trip, please consider tapping the ❤️ button, or share it. Or both! Thanks again.