This must be the place: The questions of a thousand dreams, what you do and what you see
It’s been exactly two months since I remember what it felt like. You know, “normalcy.”
It was a Tuesday and also St. Patrick’s Day. By order of the governor, the bars and restaurants of North Carolina were to close until further notice at 5 p.m. Oddly enough, it was one of the nicest days of the year at that point in the mountains of Southern Appalachia. Sunshine and a warm breeze signaling spring after another winter gone by.
This must be the place: It was the work of the quiet mountains, this torrent of purity at my feet
Walking out of my apartment this past Tuesday, the morning sun illuminated the mud plastered all over the side of my ole Toyota Tacoma. It was time to edit and put out the newspaper, but the only thing I could think about was when I could once again escape into the wildness.
This must be the place: It’s hard to frown when ukulele music is goin’ down
Stepping into the hotel room, my mother had an odd expression on her face when she looked at me and said, “I got you something for your birthday. If you don’t like it, then you can give it away to someone.”
This must be the place: It’s a good life that comes upon you now and then
While waiting for my coffee to be brewed in the back of the newsroom this past Tuesday, I stared blankly into the abyss.
Looking around the small nook, there were memos on the wall, sink filled with cups and dishes, small fridge in the corner and stacks of office supplies on the shelves. The coffeepot burped and shook me out of the trance.
This must be the place: Searchin’ through the fragments of my dream-shattered sleep
Last Thursday evening, I sat in my recliner, in my one-bedroom apartment in downtown Waynesville, and gazed over at the overflowing pile of old clothes and junk slowly sliding out of the nearby closet like some Southern Appalachian landslide after a heavy rainfall.
This must be the place: The street heats the urgency of now, as you can see there’s no one around
So, probably like most of y’all out there, I’ve spent a lot of time during the continuing quarantine combing through the details of my life, physically and emotionally, whether I intended to or not.
This must be the place: Just as long as the guitar plays, let it steal your heart away
Sunday afternoon in the mountains of Western North Carolina. The date on my phone says April 5, but I really haven’t had any sense of time since early March. Coming into a month of the “new norm” during all of “this.”
This must be the place: Came to pass eyes that lost their vision, learned to see with sturdy intuition
It’s a crazy world out there right now, folks. And yet, it’s always been kind of nuts anyhow, just more so under the current circumstances.
This must be the place: Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore?
So, here we are, eh?
What a difference a day makes, where now each morning we seemingly wake up into another new normal in the fight against the coronavirus. It’s this existence of being stuck at home for the sake of society’s health and well-being — all dressed up and nowhere to go now taking on an entirely different meaning.
This must be the place: Ode to Nashville, ode to rebuilding
Being the nighthawk that I am, it was around 3 a.m. on March 3 when I found myself listening to some music and scrolling through Instagram.
Suddenly, I kept coming across images of a massive storm in Nashville and of a pile of rubble that was once The Basement East music venue in the city.
