Kind Hearts, this hurricane has made me think about water, and I can say with certainty that water once had a role in my grandparents’ life that was near to a religion. Several years ago, a friend sent me a warning that confused me. “An organization named Nestlé is coming for your water.” What the hell? I struggled to understand how anyone could steal my water.

Hello from Room 813 of the Cambria hotel in downtown Asheville. It’s Sunday night, nearing 10 p.m. Warm air outside on the patio overlooking the skyline of a city I’ve orbited for the last 12 years, a place near and dear to my heart and soul, thoughts and visions.

For those of you who don’t know her, Julia Nunnally Duncan is an award-winning freelance writer and author of 11 books of nonfiction, fiction and poetry who is a native of Western North Carolina whose hometown is Marion.

It’s 9:54 a.m. Tuesday. I’m sitting at the old wooden kitchen table at my parents’ farmhouse in rural Upstate New York, within close range of the Canadian border, just a few farm fields away from the mighty, ancient Lake Champlain. 

The alarm on my smart phone echoed throughout the small cabin. It was 7:30 a.m. Saturday and I had to be somewhere in an hour — hopping onto a saddle for an early morning horse ride. 

It was a beautiful sunny morning when I felt the urge to make the 45-minute drive to my hometown of Weaverville.

A lot has changed through the decades, but the excitement surrounding a back-to-school season remains.

I’m the mom to two boys, ages 14 and 11. Both of them are currently on the cusp of a big transition. My younger son, Case, is in fifth grade and will be starting middle school in the fall, while my older son, Brooks, is in eighth grade and will be entering high school.

Pop culture wants to kill us. At the very least, it wants to make us miserable, to ensure that from an early age we are well on our way to a lifetime of chronic disappointment.

Our son, Jack, is a senior in high school, which means that we are already well into the “season of lasts.” For us, the hardest one of all is the last marching band season.