Looking toward Hot Springs with Bluff Mountain in the way distance (left side of photo)
In the pines, in the pines
June with long human shadows
A future destination- that mountain above the double wide
I am delighted to have found a partner in foot exploration. Those who know me personally will probably be quick to agree that I am terrible with directions. When I got my license at age 16, the first place I wanted to drive by myself was to my best friend's house. I had been going there since first grade. I got in the car to leave, but then I had to go back into the house and ask my parents for directions on how to get there. They thought I was kidding. I was not kidding. Even now at my job working landscaping, it is not uncommon for me to need to ask directions to a client's house that I have been to many times. I am not dumb or really all that slow-witted. It is something about not being able to easily recall spacial relationships of different things- rooms in a house, roads, landmarks. I can remember them, but the way they are oriented in relation to each other gets all muddled up in my brain. Always has been that way. Living in these here mountains can get really confusing, even for the most directionally apt person. You walk around a ridge and down a holler, and you get all turned around as to which way is which. It really helps me understand where I am and where other things are if I can walk the terrain and go to various view points, especially in the winter, and see where everything is.
Being on foot and walking the land is the crucial factor here. I love travelling and exploring places on foot. Always have. Usually it has been a solo endeavor, but the times I have found a suitable foot travel companion, it is very fun and exciting- pretty much one of my top favorite ways to spend time with someone.
I am most happy to have discovered my dear friend and neighbor Moonie to be a most compatible walking companion. She shares the love of getting one's bearings by walking all around, and she has lots of places that she would love to walk to- just because. I am all about it. Today, being the clear, cold and sunny winter day that it was, was a perfect time to set out with a few provisions and see where we could go in an afternoon.
Our loosely discussed mission was to walk to the old childhood homeplace of Shorty, the queen of the hollerhood, who has passed on, but whose legacy is very much alive and kicking. I was wandering around a couple years ago and came upon the sweetest, most lovely, quiet, uninhabited meadowy farmstead, that I later found out was Shorty's childhood homeplace. I couldn't exactly remember how I got there, but we figured we'd try. We had a limited amount of time, because Moonie had dinner plans, and we didn't find it today, but the walk was most magnificent nontheless. Stunning views, dark cold piney hollers, old lonesome homeplaces tucked way back where the sun don't shine, brilliant sun glowing off of a fresh layer of snow, a late afternoon sun dog. And now we have an excuse to get together again real soon to try again. I am hoping that these walking adventures become a somewhat regular occurence.
4 comments:
Reading your blog always takes me away in a land where you can dream. We have to have the story telling party, keep the weekend around march 5 open and inviteyour neighboor from the Meecho's as well.
Eduard.
howdy dana--count me in on your next hike to shorty's homeplace--the last time i went there was with her just months before she died and the weeds were taller than her-- she told some great stories that made the place come alive and i'll try to remember them--up in our outhouse is a tiny souvenir i carted back from that day--it definitely would be a sacred pilgrimage to the birthplace of a saint and i think it should be a ceremonial holler event that happens at least once a year. there are a couple of ways to get there.
You keep your blaze orange on now, you hear?
Me too! I always thought I had a good sense of direction when I lived in the bayous but it does not work in the mountains. I often go the wrong way on I40, east and west seem to be backwards to me. Is it the gravitational pull of the mountain or the lack of the coastal waters pulling from the south?
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