Better, but not easier

(Asheville at night)

There's a deeper well,
but we're not drinkin' from it
And it hurts like hell
to just be thinkin' of it...
-Catie Curtis

Mondays often do pull for the blogging. Perhaps it is wanting to begin the week with some semblance of connection and reflection. Or perhaps the weekend begs to be tied up, or tied into, the coming days.

Either way, I returned from Asheville beneath a beautiful sky. I was content with my music and my mountains, and would have kept on driving if it weren't for the pull of making dinner, joining Christen, Lydia, & Audrey for our usual Sunday night gathering. But once I arrived, an unexpected sadness seemed to sink in, as I watched the bright winter sunset. Standing on the hill across from my house, I stared for minutes... thinking that there is nothing more beautiful than the silhouette of a winter tree against a burning sky. And then I went inside, and I felt wrong.

I don't know why. Maybe I am just depressed-- some misfirings of the brain I should not try to read-- but I cannot leave it at that. I guess it was just one of those weekends that was so good it left me lonely. In Asheville, I hung out with Melissa, Dale, and the girls most of the time-- consumed in championship soccer games, and heart-warming movies, a great UU service, Blockus marathons, and late-night empathic and hilarious conversations between me and Melissa... the intellectual debates and delicious food that Dale always has to offer... all criss-crossed with the contagious goofiness of 10 year-old geniuses. ;)

On Saturday, I hung out with Jes and was reminded, once again, of the gift of our effortless similarity at times. We went to a fabric store, walked around downtown, and wrote. We had the same reaction to Sweeny Todd. Sometimes it is too easy.

As I was leaving town, a song came into my head, as if delivered by an alt country muse. ;) I never finished writing it, but the chorus began: Maybe I'm not meant to have what's easy.

While at UU church, I ran into Mary Alm (new UU president, a professor I house-sat for one summer, and my old writing center boss), Sarah Delcourt (who I used to work at the domestic violence shelter with), as well as my Aunt Linda (who recently joined the UU church, apparently). Then at the soccer game, I ended up sitting next to my cousin Jean Louise. She was there with her best friend's mom (the girl was on Emma and Kenzie's team), and the woman was going on and on about how much she loved my Aunt Jean. "Yeah, she's amazing," I concurred. And I couldn't resist adding: "You should meet her sisters, too-- my grandmother is the same way!" :) I was at once filled with a gratitude and longing-- thankful for that amazing community and sad that I was perhaps wasting my life away somewhere else and would be forced to do so, now, by love.

My problem in life is sometimes that I love too many things? :(

Things are not created equal. There are places where the hopeful congregate. There are pockets in every community (and I am thankful to have found some of them in K-town). And I have known the trouble of a difficult family-- the kind you always feel alone with, who live in fear and try to push it on you, who never approve of who you are or what you love or, at best, look at your wishes with confusion. And I have lived in Charlotte-- a concrete collection of newness covering poverty, and all the usual complains of a big city (a banking center, nonetheless).

But I have also had the gift of an amazing family-- my dad's and my grandmother's side-- the kind of people who are interesting and kind, the people who give to the world who seek to understand it. And I have grown up always with one foot in the mountains, where things are more beautiful somehow. I am not sure if hopeful people congregate there or if the place makes you hopeful. I'm sure it's a little of both.

And Audrey was in Valle Crucis this weekend, and I thought of her there and wished I had gotten to Beech Mountain this year, and Grandfather and all the familiar profiles...

Sometimes I wonder at the strength of my belonging, my longing to be there again. I wonder if there isn't something in the blood? Our family has been there for generations, I guess, rooted deeply as one of the first people to be brave (or desperate or stupid?) enough to cross the mountains. I am a person of narratives, and mine has always seemed rooted in that setting. Without it, the words hold less meaning. Part of this is winter, though, admittedly. In winter I feel out of my element (except in the snow of Beech). I feel like a shell removed from the beach, as Emerson would say.

But I am rambling now. I guess what I'm trying to say this Monday is that I miss my home. Growing up where I did, how I did (in Charlotte, with a family that didn't share my interests) I never thought I would feel at home... that I could find a true community. I always hoped for it, though, through books and music and other fantasies. And so when I found that, in Asheville, I loved it all stronger for its rarity. And there is something about experiencing this that makes it hard to go on easily in life. For I know things in a different way. Life is always easier, though never better, if you only know one thing. Maybe that's what the story of creation is all about. Knowledge comes with such a price.

I know there is such a thing as a true community, where people accept you for who you are and people work together for similar values of love, justice, hope, etc... for both humankind and the environment that supports it. No, things are never perfect: there are killings and prejudice and snobbery and all the rest in Asheville (not to mention the annoying 'trustafarians'), just as there is everywhere. But it not the mainstream, it doesn't have the same power. It's not considered "cool," as it is elsewhere. I long to be somewhere again where it is not dorky to read, where environmentalism is not a fringe belief, and I don't have to be defensive about who I love.

And sometimes it is hard for me to settle for these other things when I have known that possibility of acceptance. All this does not negate, however, the small community of awesome people I have found here, and the support and companionship of my North Knoxville friends! They are also made precious by their rarity. Still, sometimes I wish it was easier. Or else, at the very least, I wish others would understand what it is like to wish for this... to acknowledge this dilemma.