Mountain View

This is weekend number two alone. It hit hard last weekend, and this weekend, particularly since it's July 4th, has been even harder.

Here's my new alter-identity. I can make most drinks you might order now. And if I can find the right buttons on the register, I can ring you up, too. I'm not used to this identity yet, and I don't know that I will ever be. It's quite the contrast to my Hub City Writers Project job, which I adore, and so I'm calling it a learning experience, a getting-to-know-the-people experience.

I worked at Starbucks yesterday until 2 and then had the rest of the day off, looking onto today, which has been my first day off in two weeks. I was so exhausted yesterday (and sickly, with a pounding head and upset stomach), collectively exhausted from the last two to three months of little sleep, a lot of change, and varying stresses, that I laid on the futon nearly consistently from 2:30 on. In that time, I finished Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, took a two-hour nap, watched a few tv shows, rested some more, and read the first third of Staying Put by Scott Russell Sanders. (This will be the summer of reading and writing--or, the start of a lifetime of voracious reading and writing--things I didn't have time for, truly, when I was in school.) At the end of the night, still not feeling very well, I opened the north side window of my bay window and sat at my dining table to wait for Spartanburg's fireworks show in the Northeast sky, stemming from Barnett Park just five or six blocks away. Once it got started and I had the perfect view that I predicted I would have, I went out on my fire escape and watched the fifteen minute show. So, the photo below is from my fire escape, with my bay window on the left and, of course, the show in the distance. The one pesky thing was that light on the parking lot next door that, ironically, went out about five second after the fireworks ended.

This morning, it was Breakfast at Wimbledon: one of my favorite mornings of the year. And Nadal triumphed. And I was glad. And then I got restless. After two weeks of working every day, I had a deep desire to go North, to the mountains. I studied a map online, trying to decide which road to take how far, and settled on 176W toward Tryon, NC.

Through Inman and Campobello and Landen, I made it to Tryon and kept going. Tryon is where it got gorgeous. A sweet little town and then the highway narrowed and went up, curved, flanked by giant trees and kudzu. It climbed, and I climbed, and I cheered. And I was once again affirmed how nature is my comfort, my spiritual foundation, my solace. There's something about ascending. And if I had more energy right now I would keep going with this. But let me just tell you that I kept driving, unwilling to stop or turn around, all the way to Hendersonville, where the highway widened into the town and commercial districts once again. I ate a late lunch at Subway, with a German Chocolate Cake Frozen Yogurt Waffle Cone for my holiday desert, and then I headed back the way I came, eager to stop at a few spots that I had noticed along the way. One was a walking bridge to the side of the highway bride, which, it turns out, overlooked a rocky stream:

Gorgeous. The sound of water. Peace beside a highway. But I wasn't alone (a family down the bridge), and so I didn't linger.

Just outside Tryon, I turned off on the road that lead to Pearson's Falls because I couldn't resist a waterfall--or any water at all--but when I turned onto the road to the falls I saw a gate and a sign that said $5. I panicked. And I said I would just have to turn around. And so I did, and regretted it, but told myself that I live just 30 minutes from it and could come back--tomorrow even, or later this week. I couldn't do everything in one day.

Now I'm exhausted again, probably from driving away from the mountains, which I've decided is the saddest thing in the world. That, and the Gulf Oil Spill and the slaughtered elephants I just saw on 60 Minutes. Damn disasters caused by people.

So now, pleased with my Fourth of July afternoon of driving around America's Blue Ridge Mountains and appreciating them and my freedom to decide to just up and drive to another state, I'm home and plan on working on submissions tonight. And tomorrow, I hope. And catching up on other writings that I have to do.

For now I'll watch the sunset reflect off the buildings in Downtown Spartanburg and hope for more sleep tonight.