mountain girl

I used to be a beach girl. The smell of the salt in the air, the call of the gulls, the seductive and repetitive beating of the surf against the sand, the warm sun on my face – all these things brought me a peace that was difficult to find elsewhere. I grew up going to the beach every year for summer vacation and then, when we first moved to South Carolina, we spent a great deal of time in Charleston and along the coast and I affirmed to anyone who would listen that the only place I could really slow down and do nothing was at the beach.

And then I discovered the mountains.

I grew up in the shadow of the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania but never really took much notice other than skiing in the winter. The very first time I drove west to the NC mountains, I noticed. Never had I been so awestruck by nature. Here were winding byways cut through endless towering mountains that blocked the sun, here were deep forest trails following babbling brooks and ending in roaring waterfalls, here was a different kind of quiet in the constant chatter of wildlife in the trees, and here was a new seduction of the senses in the smell of sweet grass, warmed by the sun, the hum of insects alive in the woods, and the cool bite in the air that you only taste in the shade of a thousand trees so tall they must have been there since time began.



There is an ancient undercurrent here that draws me back, makes me remember that I am much smaller than I would like to think and that I have much to learn. The love affair began that first time I encountered the splendor of western NC and since then I’ve been continuing on a journey of a thousand moments, some that I’ll share with you in the next two weeks as I discover over and over the majesty of the mountains.