Strangers

It was odd, to be in a place so beautiful, clouds draped between crooks of the rolling mountains, like soft smoke, and I expected stress to melt off my shoulders but it stubbornly lingered. Like a cat brushing up against them, reminding of its indifferent presence. It wasn’t the setting that had me off-kilter. I know mountains. I grew up in mountains, on trails, climbing trees and mother nature wrapping us in the folds of blue ridges. Maybe I just didn’t know these mountains, different and daunting. Unfamiliar earth.

While we stayed in the comfort of down blankets, a cozy fireplace, full cabinets, a deck encased in purple rhododendron, we were aware the hills beyond held history and hardship. People who lived a life I only read about in books about Appalachia. If I’m being honest, as we drove in, the sinking barns and collapsed homes that effused sadness and hard gritty days haunted my thoughts, gnawed at my gut.

I carry pride from growing up content and happy in small discomforts, a family budget that left no wiggle room and only practiced practicality. Hand-me downs, basic cars, window fans and tv rabbit ears, nothing fancy, making do. Wealth an unknown and unnecessary world. But here on the gravel roads that cut up the mountain, uneven and precarious, I felt soft, mocked by a place so remote. Trailers stacked like random books on a shelf up the hills, porches full, dogs loud…aware that we were strangers.

Yes, I looked out at the rolling hills, rolling thunder, rolling green and felt such peace. A solid gratitude when the little ones squatted shoulder to shoulder squealing over centipedes and snails and caterpillars. Joy when deep gulps of the air felt clearer in my lungs, breathing in a storm that smells like mountain rain. Yes, my heart was full.

But still. The sense lurked that we were strangers.
And I felt relief when we drove back to our own mountains that felt like mine.