My father is a lifer in Maine. Born, raised, and still doing it. He spent the formative years of his life in Rockland, Maine, climbing in the nearby Cambden Hills to get a glimpse of the ships in the harbor and outrunning the taunts of vacationing city girls on rocky beaches. Surviving a brief stint in the South after being drafted out of college, he returned home to Maine to settle in the cool Penobscot Bay again. So it should come as no surprise that I was born with salt water in my blood. In fact, during my life in landlocked Bolivia, I would often comb the city streets expecting to find a hidden port at the end of some cobbled street. Once I climbed the highest mountain around and when I sensed sea salt in the arrid wind around me, knew it was time to go home.
During a recent phone conversation with my father, he assured me that the only way he could ever settle outside of a land without ocean would be to live in the mountains. I completely agree. All the Buddhist devotees and native guides in the mountains would concur: we are just spiritually in touch when we reach higher ground.
I took off from Washington, D.C. right before Passover, which is almost fitting, because I was seeking refuge, but not so much because Western Virginia is staunchly Christian. I had so many romanticized visions of what this trip would be like.....me, roughing it camping in the mountains, cuddled up in my little tent by a fire of my own making, living out my love affair with the mountains. Who needs other human beings, not me! Life partner, what's that? I laugh in the face of convention, just give me my woods!
My first lesson of travel into the United South was about understanding how the bus schedule works. You may think you can judge how long it takes to get to a certain location on a southern bound Greyhound bus by more or less how long it would take in a car. But you'd be missing the point. Thanks to southern hospitality, you can add fifteen minutes a stop for bathroom breaks, ten to recheck all tickets, five so everyone can finish their cigarettes, and another five to tell the guy with the overalls that no, he cannot bring his beer on the bus. And the people from places like New York are looking around at each other and checking the time on their cellphones.
Of course I loved it. A woman at the last stop summed it up when she said, "The hardest thing about taking the bus is havin' to say goodbye to good friends at the end." I talked politics with a roadie from Nashville, business with a tradesman from Cairo, Egypt, and divorce with just about everyone. I heard so much unsolicited advice I could have filled this blog with it. But I also got to make the trip into Appalachia with some really great human beings. There was this one woman, skinny as a rail and with really sharp features, hair pulled tight into a phony tail and white as bone. She had this daughter that sat near her, who looked just like her, only without the lines of struggle across her face. And I kept listening to her life accented, thinking about the little town she was going home to, scoffing at all the men trying to catch her eye. I loved her laughter , and thought about all the stories we probably have in common and the struggles that maybe we don't share but we could.
You don't usually ride this bus all the way West unless you can't afford another way. There was one man on the bus headed to Tucson (my current final destination). He struggled audibly for a breath and asked at every stop if this was the right bus to be on. Despite the tendency I have during long periods alone to serenade myself with everything I'm doing wrong with my life, I am glad I chose this route, because this is about the people I have come to be with. This is the journey I want to share. The people I serve mostly travel this way.
Western Virginia takes my breath away. It is immediately a land for postcards. Appalachia is all about little farms with red roofed barns and water wheels, vinyards and rusty trucks. Folks talking over fences at their neighbors and little country stores just over the next hill. The dogwood and azalea trees arabesque across the landscape, daintily pointing a finger towards the mountains.
My first stop was Charlottesville. I determined back in DC that I would need to first make it to mountain country before I set down an exact route through the mountains. I searched the internet, trying to determine how to make this trek through Appalachia, but finally I just decided I needed to arrive and talk to real folks about what people do. So I found a hostel in Charlottesville, Virginia called the Alexander House and hopped on the bus.
Charlottesville is cuddled up right inside of the Shenandoah Valley, towards the Northwest part of the state. It's vinyard country and it sure is purdy. The hostel where I stayed has this little white fence surrounding it, and is run entirely by this woman named Mare. I loved walking out of my hostel on a muggy evening and watching the full moon light up the hills. Sure made me get out my guitar.
Just across from my hostel is a Mom and Pop-type car rental. For $25, I had myself a great set of wheels. It didn't even matter that I returned the car late that evening; we just called up the owner on her cell and worked it out.
I took my car high up into the mountains in the Shenandoah, immediately engulfed by bright green land and a sense of my own strength. I ended up climbing Old Rag Mountain in Madison, a five hour circuit. The mountains in this part of the country are similiar to the mountains near Maine, except the dirt is so much redder, and the flowering dogwood trees climb up with you. There are other such surprises in the middle of this wood, chives and pink trees, and, I've heard, poisonous snakes and billy goats.
I went up the mountains for perspective, knowing inner peace brings presence to my work. Climbing is an important part of the journey; there are many decisions to be made. Do I drink the water from the stream? How do I keep my body strong over the next ridge? What is the next step I make? I thought a lot about the risks I take as a woman alone, the risks we all take in loving someone.
Descending once again into the valley, I had one goal: checking out the vinyards. I drove my car up and down these winding red roads past little yellow houses and musty dark brown cows in pastures, their big cow eyes taking in the sudden distraction. I would follow all the signs would grapes on them, nearly falling off the road, only to get to a closed fence or lose the path. You promised me grapes! I thought. But it was no use; all the vinyards were pretty deserted.
So I stopped into one of the country stores for an iced tea and some chatter. I had been thinking about how incredibly beautiful the farms I had passed were, and desiring to spend some lazy afternoons on their porch swings, under a quilt made by hand and a faithful little dog. So I walked up in my hiking boots to a couple of men sitting at a shabby little picnic table and asked what it's like to be a farmer in this part of the world. "It's hard", one guy answered, ajusting his thick yellow overall straps further onto his shoulders. He explained that everyone in these parts raises cattle for meat, and that most of the actual food produced goes toward their feed. It's hard to make any money and you have to be ready to work hard. I shared some stories of what we produce in Maine and put that dream to rest. Thank you, sir. Welc'm.
Leaving Charlottesville, I hopped on another sluggish bus and headed to the tiny town of Marion, planning to climb Mt. Rogers, the highest mountain in Virginia. It was 9:00 pm when my achey body descended the stairs into an abandoned parking lot and a Greyhound station the size of someone's living room. I waited for a couple of minutes and when I was convinced no cars or buses were ever coming, I called a taxi. The kid driving the cab couldn't have been more than twenty, and i'm pretty sure he has a hunting rifle in the back trunk. He got out of the car and I noticed his fatigues and the big wad of tobacco in his cheek. "I'm in the army too, you know," he bragged. Great. I feel so much better.
Marion is up in the mountains and chilly. I had done all my organizing of this trip amid the bus squallor, with my cell phone and trusty atlas in hand. I reserved a rental car and motel room so I had a way to start out. Then I planned to camp close to Mt. Rogers. Despite the chill in the air, I was ready.
I stayed in one of those motels that remind of a place that they shoot up in the movies, where the kicking in the doors would not be too difficult. There was a can of skoal under one of the beds and a cigarette burned hole in the bathroom curtain. Still, I love the luxury of being able to stretch out on starchy white sheets and watch junky TV until late all by myself. Whenever I've missed a flight somewhere I enjoy indulging.
I awoke with those pre-hiking, pre-coffee jitters I get when I just need to be on the road. My rental car would be a whole hour late. Oh well, I'll just watch this cop show and sleep a little. Well, my car turned out to be two hours late (and i was looking at at least a seven hour hike). Finally, I was picked up and transported to the car rental facility to wait for the car I was supposed to drive. I was escorted into the office by two sweet older gentlemen who physically resembled an old pair of comedians. The car I had reserved was there except that they didn't tell me on the phone that I would need a credit card to pick it up and the guy ten years younger than me who probably took this job because it was the only one around wouldn't cut me any slack. After several attempts to work something out, I ended up taking the lesson in stride and boarding a bus for Asheville, North Carolina. I really wanted to climb that mountain, but learning how to be okay with the message that things just aren't working is also an important skill I need to learn on this trip. Sometimes the message is bigger than stubborn me.
So I went winding my way through Virginia, Tennessee and finally into North Carolina, feeling the pressure of the hard bus seats on my hiking joints, smelling the stale smoky breath of my travelling companions. We descended into parts of Appalachia that can only be honored by silence, their living still-lifes of mining and farming work lending a glimpse at that hardship folks here live. I was enthralled by the beauty and drawn in by its meaning. I am left with the words of James Agee, from his book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, who struggled with documenting this culture: "Every fury on earth has been absorbed in time, as art, or as religion, or as authority in one form or another. The deadliest blow the enemy of the human soul can strike is to do fury honor."
No comments:
Post a Comment