The apartment became quiet, save for the incessant low rumbling of vehicles on nearby Walnut Street. No matter, the noise of daily life in our small mountain town has become a background hum to remind me of my surroundings while I get lost in thought, which is usually most of my day, either in bed, in my truck or while writing this piece.

It’s mid-November. The last of the fall foliage leaves are long gone from the branches of the large maple trees in the front lawn of the apartment building. The sun is still warm when you find yourself directly standing in it. But, the cold air of winter swirls once again, especially when I’m out for a jog, my jacket bundled a little tighter each outing of exercise and serenity.

I get out of bed in search of hot coffee. Wandering into the living room, my guitar is still on the couch from late-night playing, quietly by myself, Sarah sleeping in the other room. Most of the town is also asleep when the clock strikes midnight and the wild-n-out nature of Saturday knowns and unknowns are now in the rearview mirror.

The pillows on the couch are disheveled from when I finally entered slumber around 2 a.m. only to wake up with the sun ‘round 6 a.m., slowly moseying to the bedroom, Sarah mumbling, “It’s about time you came to bed.” An hour later, she had to get up and get ready for the day, for there was delicious breakfast and good conversation to be had on Haywood Road. 

Pick up the Gretsch Electromatic semi-hollow body guitar and sit down in a nearby chair. Reach for the guitar pick and strum and few chords repeatedly to get the rhythm of the day in motion. Pick up where I left off in the early morning hours of Sunday. Just messing around with chords, but always being aware of just how fun and rewarding, more so meditative, it is to learn to play an instrument.

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The Gretsch is my go-to for late-night pickin’-n-grinnin’ seeing as my acoustic guitars are too loud to bang around on at midnight. But, the Electromatic is perfect. You can strum it as loud as you want because it isn’t plugged into an amplifier, but the semi-hollow nature of the guitar makes it sound like a muffled acoustic. Ideal for nighttime.

Fix the couch pillows. Put the guitar back to its usual spot in the corner. Make the bed. Then, head out into the world for hot coffee, seeing as we forgot to get more drip coffee when we went to the grocery store yesterday. A solo mission for caffeine refreshment. Large cup in-hand leaving the coffee shop. Sip. Sip. Sip. And do so with gusto.

Finally, I sit at my writing desk just before noon. Deadlines and daydreaming. Sentences and emotions. Paragraphs and parachuting into the thought of oneself in this very moment. The sounds of John Coltrane’s seminal 1965 album “A Love Supreme” on the stereo. The soothing melodic tone that has inspired my mind and my fingertips across the keyboard since I first heard it freshman year of college.

That was 21 years ago. Where does the time go, eh? I was 18 and attending Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Some 300 miles and six hours away from all things familiar and loved back home in the North Country of Upstate New York. Blast some Coltrane in my headphones while completing some homework, my writing desk in front of the third-floor dorm room window overlooking the campus surrounded by Sleeping Giant State Park.

Now, the writing desk faces the living room window with a view of the ancient Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. My current position is 808 miles from Hamden and 1,002 miles from my hometown of Plattsburgh, New York, where my folks still reside in the 1840 brick farmhouse along that country road on the outskirts of town.

My father is 82 years old and still as strong as an ox. Between jogging and keeping himself busy each day, he’s as sharp as a tack and just as stubborn as an old ox, too. God bless’em though. Like clockwork, by this time in the day (noon), he’s already had breakfast and lunch and thinking about what he might want for dinner around the time the local news comes on the TV. Glass of wine. Meat and potatoes.

In the meantime, the old man remains in this continual motion of chopping wood to put into the two stoves on either end of the old farmhouse. And there’s a couple hours each day he dedicates to building the large stone wall that he hopes will go the distance along the front lawn of the farmhouse — his legacy to someday be set in stone.

My mother is likely somewhere in town, usually wherever her three grandkids may be on Sunday afternoon. Stop by the grocery store later for that bottle of wine and the meat and potatoes for the impending evening meal. Head home and get cozy next to the fireplace. Pour some wine. Admire the progress my father made on the stone wall today. Maybe call her son in Waynesville.

I look forward to seeing them for Christmas this year. It’s been a long time since I’ve been home for the holidays. Sarah’s also excited to roll into the North Country, to get cozy with a glass of wine by the fireplace in the living room next to my mom, while I’ll be in the back den, sitting with the old man, watching college football over a cold Labatt Blue beer. It’s the simple things in life that mean the most. True that, my brothers and sisters.

Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.