Appalachian Memories

Down to the Soft Grass  

At the top of Windy Gap we spread our lunch of cream cheese and crackers we’d bought at a little general store in Villas. Barry and I were in our thirties and had been married for a few years. I can see him now, long legs in jeans that fit like they were made just for him, camera strap around his neck.  

We found this place, Seven Devils, and rented a rustic cabin that looked down on small towns and little roads that wormed between mountains in the far north western part of North Carolina. My memories of that day, high on a mountain in Appalachia, away from life’s reality back home, brings forth a smile. When I’m told to go to a place I want to be where I feel comfortable and at peace, I go there. That is the only way I can go back there. The place no longer exists having been developed for condos and rental houses for the skiers who fill the slopes in winter.

And Barry is no longer here to go with me, so I’d not want to go there. But I can recapture that day, the wind blowing in my face, the sweet fresh air tasting like a cool drink from a mountain spring. Little did I know how quickly the years would pass and how precious that day, that moment, would become to me, even now decades later.

I found this essay I wrote some years ago and decided to share it today on my blog. Savor every day, every moment because they are fleeting and one day will only be memories.