In 2011 after I euphorically announced to my world on Facebook that I had moved to the North Carolina mountains I got a message from a former co-worker and journalist: “How the hell did you manage to escape?”
I never answered him.
How could I neatly explain six years of limbo after I fell in love with the mountains – from job losses to cleaning houses to bankruptcy and foreclosure? What I deliberately portrayed as a life-changing triumph was wrung from years of uncertain struggle, a bull-headed determination and more risk than I had ever taken.
It’s said the Universe rewards boldness, and I was praying it was true.
I didn’t have a job there. I was on unemployment. I only knew a handful of acquaintances.
What looked like a masterful strategy to my friend was in reality repeated gifts of serendipity I never expected.
An unexpected tax refund two days before I was offered a small cottage to rent in Brevard.
A former employer who honored his promise of a hefty commission once I landed after bankruptcy.
A friend who agreed to drop everything to drive with me on the move to North Carolina when at the last minute I had a nostril cauterized after massive nosebleeds.
A gift of going-away cash that paid for the procedure because I didn’t have health insurance.
Everything came as it was needed.
The first time I visited the mountains I felt like I came home
My heart opened to a flood of overwhelming natural beauty in 2005 when I stood at Pounding Mill Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Endless, elegant blue mountain ridges rolled as far as my eye could see in soft shades of blue that blended earth and sky.
A flatlander from Detroit, I always (and still) defend the city that was good to me. But I eventually grew weary of the grittiness. I didn’t know what I needed as I gazed at the mountains, but it found me anyway.
The mountains quenched the soul thirst I didn’t know I had, for a sense of place and belonging I didn’t know I needed.
That feeling of coming home was a deep, unconscious, visceral reaction. It triggered joyful tears and sobs every time I left my cat-sitting visits to drive back to Detroit, and again when I first spotted the distant mountains from southern Kentucky on return visits.
But for Detroit, never a tear.
It was the spontaneous sobs that crystallized the decision to move. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know when. I created a vision board with photos from that trip and it was my consuming ambition for the next six years.
“Every day I feel like I’m walking on gratitude”
I found one line to convey the ever-bubbling joy and thankfulness I felt constantly after the long-anticipated move. “Every day I feel like I’m walking on gratitude,” I’d answer when asked how I liked it.
Gratitude for the endless beauty in every direction.
For the silence like velvet that smooths my agitated senses.
For the spaciousness – physically, mentally, emotionally and energetically – that calls me to stretch in all directions.
For the tickles of unexpected delight from Kodachrome sunsets, deer relaxing in the rain in the dark, noisy hummingbirds and random turtles in front of my door.
For the surprise bits of awe and wonder.
For shafts of magical light through the mist, the undersong of creeks and playful dapples of light on leaves.
For the inner stillness that reflects the forest stillness.
Every day is awe and wonder
I was warned I wouldn’t appreciate Nature as much after I had been in the mountains for awhile, that it would all fade into the background of life. Oh hell no.
Once my awareness expanded, every walk revealed new discoveries with so much of Nature to meet, to say “Hello.”
When you realize you can’t take it all in, you stop trying so hard. You become fully present to experience each glistening moment.
Where rock is older than dirt
Six years ago I bought a fixer-upper on six acres 20 miles outside of town on a mountain ridge among the bears. The sound of the waterfall in the gorge below is my constant companion.
Not far, as the crow flies, is the headwaters of the French Broad River, the third-oldest river in the world at 250 million years. In their youth the Blue Ridge Mountains were estimated to be taller than the Himalayas. Some rock formations are believed to be more than 2 billion years old.
That unfathomable sense of geologic time is palpable everywhere, especially along the Parkway and the 250 named waterfalls in the county, where water has been flowing between fractured rock croppings for millions of years.
For me, these mountains are the Ancient Ones written about in old spiritual texts.
The noisy world – the hustle, politics, social media – fades away into the background.
I left behind three treasured red oaks on my tiny lot near Detroit. But I traded them for a world that is vaster, deeper and more beautiful than anything I could ever imagine.
Great read and great to read! Love that you listened to your soul and made it happen, with patience and determination - and the serendipity that flows from it. I've always wanted to live somewhere with forest and mountains at my back and the ocean (with a sandy beach) in front. Not found it yet. And not sure I'd move if I did. I'd probably end up a hermit if it weren't for nowadays-tech.
Great to read your story Marsha. Long may you and the cats enjoy those mountains and daily life in such a splendid display of nature.