carolina in my mind
august 11th, 2000

i made my way to asheville today. i wasn't going to - i had about a 
million excuses in my head to go against it, including the fact that the 
journey didn't begin until three o'clock in the afternoon, not giving me 
much time to really enjoy my destination once i got there, but it was 
enough. i took the asheville highway straight from greeneville through the 
mountains, that long, whisper of a winding road that travels alongside 
creeks and riverbeds, and you can see the damn over the nolachuckey river, 
and it pulls right by south greene high school and just keeps climbing, 
until eventually you're in north carolina and scared to look down. it was 
beautiful.

and these were real mountains. big mountains. ones that you have to shift 
to a lower gear to climb over. ones that make the inside of your head 
crackle and pop as the pressure releases your eardrums. you look to the 
side, you can see the trickle of water softly bathing the naked rocks 
where the road was cut away. the asheville highway itself is a two-lane 
road that hardly disturbs anything. there is a canopy of green all around 
you, on either side. you wind softly through the forests, watch the road 
machinery and the tobacco farmers and the bent guard rails on either side 
hardly making a sound at all. indeed, it was the asheville highway that 
was buried beneath a mudslide a couple of years ago, the road was closed 
for a long time as the damage was repaired. the asheville highway knows 
where its place is. it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. it doesn't 
want to get any bigger, even if it tried.

i pulled into asheville, into the downtown area, into the place where i 
precisely wanted to be, all without getting lost, or making u-turns, or 
suffering in confusion staring at maps and stuttering over directions. 
this is abnormal for me. i am, after all, the same girl who a mere few 
weeks ago got lost on a familiar route home.

i struggled with strollers, searched the floorboards for loose change for 
the parking meter, and rolled my little starfish around downtown asheville 
for the few hours i could spend, gawking at everything wide-eyed and 
open-mouthed, staring longingly at libraries and eccentric shops, at 
celtic-themed pubs and resturants of all flavours. art museums, basement 
music stores, environmental toys - there was even a shop that would 
custome-create cookies for you. the streets were packed with artists and 
dreamers and vagabonds, or older people who once were one of these, or 
younger people who wished they were. and i stared at everyone with my eyes 
two blue orbs of curiousity, the synapses in my brain soaking everything 
in, and a sudden thirst i never knew before wanting to go, to do, to be, 
and me, unshaven and tousled, in sandals and overall shorts.

i picked through the resturants uncertain of where to eat. there were 
millions i would have loved to try, but many of them looked terribly 
fancy, and much too expensive for the nine dollars and some odd cents i 
had tucked away in my wallet. there was a bookstore/cafe with hippies 
sitting outside and some odd sculpture out in front, so i wheeled my 
little one in that direction and fumbled through the door.

my dream bookstore. when i had visited asheville the one time before many 
years ago, we had stumbled upon this place, and my silly adolescent mind 
had no idea just what a goldmine there was. books and books, of all genres 
of imagining, books on parenting, and becoming a born-again-virgin, and 
wearing purple when you become an old woman. poetry and fantasy and 
history and appalachian culture, all there, teeming over the little brown 
bookshelves. i must have looked quite ridiculous, with my mouth wagging 
open all the while.

i shifted to the cafe part of the store and ordered a "dante delight" and 
a raspberry lemonade. i picked through my warm bagel and chicken salad and 
tomato and bean sprouts, totally relishing it, playing with my daughter 
and giving her a few bites, and giving her more bites of her own food, 
watching her lips perk up into a fish-kiss whenever i gave her a taste of 
the lemonade, and laughing all the while. shaking her head "no" with me, 
and nodding her head "yes." pointing at people and dropping things on the 
floor. telling me in baby-babble her baby adventures and all of the things 
that make up her universe. and chairs were being arranged, because a 
poetry reading was happening that evening. unfortunately, i couldn't stay, 
because my parking meter was running out.

we made our way back to the car, got ourselves settled in, and headed back 
for home using a different route. the asheville highway, as beautiful as 
it is, is not particularly somewhere i'd want to try to pick through in 
the dark, and i knew that the last hour of my journey would be racing 
against twilight. so i took the freeway back, I-40, over the mountains 
again, through pisgah and cherokee national forest. this was a route i had 
never taken before. coasting downhill, slowing on the winding curves, 
totally enraptured by the towering mountains on either side of me. there's 
something about driving through mountains that always makes me feel as if 
the arms of the earth have reached out to embrace me. the kind of feeling 
when you are a child and you are nestled in your mother's lap, and 
therefore nothing in the world could ever harm you. i feel protected in 
the mountains, and safe. and i feel as if i could climb on top of them, 
and proclaim my courage to the world, and guard all my loved ones from 
anything dark and evil that might try to pick its way in. mountains are 
triumphant to me, and strength, and sturdiness. they are rock, and bone, 
and earth, and mud, and millions of years of leaves being trampled down 
beneath every winter. and so i found myself comforted and exhilerated, 
inspired and soothed, on a stretch of I-40, that lead me up and over and 
around and even through (as there is a tunnel on this stretch of road) as 
i picked my way up into newport, and took the backroads home. (in fact, i 
even guessed again on what route would lead me exactly where i wanted to 
be, and it did.)

Aisling was such an angel for the entire trip. she slept most of the way 
going, and then played and chattered and "sang" along with the radio until 
we got there. on the way back, she got slightly fussy but immediately fell 
asleep, and then she woke up and i gave her toys to play with and she was 
contented until about (of course) fifteen minutes before we reached home. 
but all things considered, i couldn't have been more impressed and happy 
with her. i suppose an outing was all we really needed, after all.

needless to say, i love asheville. it is very rare for something to be 
even better than i remembered it being, but that was definitely the case 
this afternoon. all of this culture and diversity and art and variety in a 
city smaller (it seems, anyway) than knoxville. a small city, full of 
wonder, and if that wasn't enough, it is nestled in the heart of the 
mountains. close enough to home, but escaping the self-inflicted 
depression that small industrial towns seem to carry. close to all sorts 
of universities and colleges, that i will be targeting soon for grad 
schools, no doubt. those mountains tower over the foothills where i live. 
driving into newport, the landscape suddenly felt horribly flat. i 
couldn't even imagine what it would be like driving all the way out to 
murfreesboro anytime in the near future. all that flatness. exposed, no 
place to hide. as if a sudden wind could just come along and pick you up 
and carry you along. (and from what i hear, this *has* happened in that 
area.)

today was a good day. i feel more courageous because of it. and i need all 
the courage i can get.

on a totally random note, i'm becoming very noticably unshaven, and i 
haven't decided what i want to do about it. i used to hate having even the 
slightest bit of body hair (on my legs and under my arms anyway) and would 
keep such a close shave that you would think i never grew any. but the act 
of shaving is time-consuming and nearly impossible to do when your prime 
objective in showering is getting out as soon as possible before your 
daughter takes the bathroom apart, or gets restless and decides to climb 
in with you. a part of me thinks it might be neat to go all amazon, and 
just say "screw it" to razors and sharp things, at least until next 
spring. you know, grow a protective layer of fur to keep me warm in the 
winter.

ever since the punk concert, i've found it difficult to work at looking 
attractive. i don't *want* to be attractive anymore - in fact, i'd almost 
rather look repulsive, and thus (hopefully) avoid being fondeled by 
strange musician guys in the backstage areas of concerts. i don't wear 
makeup anymore, i avoid short dresses and other sexy outfits most of the 
time, and try to disguise myself in layers of slouchy clothing and 
unstyled hair. i don't even want to dress "out" anymore in loud colours or 
glitter or any of the other numerous costumes i love to play with. it 
would seem, actually, that i'm trying to look as normal and plain as 
possible, so i can just blend into the background and no one will even 
know i am there. i guess that's not really a good thing, when i think 
about it.

it's three thirty in the morning, and i'm hungry. i'm going to grab a bite 
to eat, pick up the living room a bit, and get to sleep.



afterthoughts of jupiter roads
august 11th, 2000

there were a few things about my trip to asheville, north carolina 
yesterday that i forgot to share. just small little random things.

1) there is something absolutely amazing about taking a small winding road 
up into the mountains while listening to allen ginsberg read "america" to 
the accompanyment of tom waits. thank you, Dust.

2) as i was entering asheville, i crossed into the "jupiter fire district" 
and intersected straight into jupiter road. here's to missing you, 
susanne.

3) out in the backroads not too far from my house there is actually a 
little yellow sign that says "critter xing". seriously. i want to steal 
that sign and mount it on my wall.

4) another discovery - on the way back from newport, there's this big silo 
with a huge white cross bordered in red painted on it. aircraft passing by 
can probably see it. i suppose there ain't too many vampires gonna mess 
with that grain, ya know.

5) autumn comes to tennessee in waves, starting with the easternmost 
portions and spreading like wildfire to the west in the most subtle ways. 
i had noticed this when i went off to college in murfreesboro, because i 
would return home to multicolored patchworks of leaves when the middle 
portion of the state was still green, or just turning yellow around the 
edges. up in the far east mountains, the leaves are already turning yellow 
around the edges. it won't be long now.

this afternoon, i ran into greeneville for a few errands. tried out the 
new place where ham's has taken residence. ham's used to be an old 
drive-in with the most wonderous hamburgers i've ever tasted in my life, 
and some killer malts and milkshakes, too. you'd sit in your car, and 
they'd bring the food out to you, all family-owned, been there for years, 
in the same run-down building on the west end of town, just this side of 
main street. a couple of years ago they moved into the building where the 
dairy queen used to be, and now they've become a proper resturant, 
fast-service and value-meals, with a drive-thru window. it lacks the charm 
it used to have, and the quality of the food has deteriorated a bit, but i 
can guarantee you that you couldn't find a better meal anywhere for under 
three dollars, so i'm not complaining. i took my cheesburger and dr. 
pepper and Aisling all to the park behind the library, where the site of 
greeneville's "big spring" is, and where once there used to be the most 
amazing weeping willow trees you have ever seen. now, the trees are gone, 
replaced with picnic tables, and the stone walkways around the spring are 
crumbling. the ducks aren't there anymore, and the water itself doesn't 
look safe to play in anymore, when i can remember how clear it was when i 
was a child and how me and all the other children in the summer reading 
group i was in waded into the spring to catch those little gray insects 
that skid across the water (i think we called them crawdads, but i doubt 
that's the proper term at all.) i had wanted to take Ash down to touch the 
water, but i was afraid to. it seems so insane that everything changes so 
much and so quickly.

but i am changing so much and so quickly. i can't even really describe 
how, or what it is that has set it off, but i can feel layers of myself 
peeling back piece by piece as i make these unfamiliar drives, as if i am 
finally shaking off the dead skin to discover what really is at the heart 
of things anymore. discovering what home is, what makes me smile, what 
makes me happy. being comfortable in myself no matter what i look like on 
the outside. saying to hell with the outside. taking things for more than 
face value. seeing into the heart of situations. i'm feeling good. braver 
and more confident in myself. i'm feeling my years, finally, feeling as 
old as i really am. feeling wise and seasoned and knowledged, instead of 
being young and dumb and ditzy as i always played at before, even if i 
wasn't. i don't know what it is, or why it's happening all of the sudden, 
right now, but i like it.

i've always felt the way malice does about september. i've always counting 
my years by what grade i was in instead of my actual age. september was 
the beginning and june the end, with the july and august inbetween being 
something totally free and wild, or something suffocating and enclosing, 
depending on the year. and i usually get really impatient waiting for 
autumn, much like both rowan and lyndsay have been speaking of in their 
journals lately. autumn would creep into my skin weeks before it would 
become visibly apparent, and i'd long for the afternoons of small sweaters 
and blue jeans and falling in leaves and laughing in wind. this year, 
however, i'm kinda sad to see summer go. it has been a summer to rival the 
ones of my childhood, a summer that's never too hot, where insects don't 
really bother you, where barefoot in shorts in sun in water is all you 
want, where laughing outside in the sticky afternoons after dinner, 
watching ants while sitting on your belly. i suppose it's because Ash does 
all these things, now, and i chase her around in bare baby feet and bare 
baby legs that will have to be covered along with hats and mittens when 
the weather turns colder. she'll miss being outside so much. and as weird 
as it is for me, i'll miss it to.

but for now, i need to see if i can convince my daughter that an afternoon 
nap would be fun, so i can catch an hour of sleep myself.