We are in the middle of a global pandemic. We have been mandated to remain in our homes except for vital needs for the past four months and we are going stir-crazy. The world, perhaps for a while now even before the pandemic, is going stir-crazy. There are just too many of us. And even in this house of two, there are sometimes too many of us.
And so, at the first opportunity to leave the house, we road tripped a full day away to the mountains. The nearest point of elevation higher than “hill” is what we sought. I didn’t grow up in the mountains and so higher elevation has a certain magical quality to it, to see with my own eyes thinning air and distance upon distance upon distance. We arrived at our log cabin for the weekend, giddy as children in our very own nature candy store. Even in the heat of the summer, we made plans to light the wood stove every night. We immediately sat on the porch swing and stared into the green wall before us, our ears entertained with the buzz of carpenter bees building suburbia in the roof above our heads. Binoculars at the ready, we soon became acquainted with the scarlet tanagers of the wood, and would learn that the pileated woodpeckers love their morning coffee served with ground grubs.
In between the moments of calm at the cabin, we discovered the elusive nature of mountain fish. Or rather, we learned that a boat is a nice thing to have if you can have it, which we did not. One of us enjoyed not catching fish, while the other of us enjoyed watching the dragonflies on the honeysuckle. As the Toccoa River bulged into a lake and then skinnied itself again, we weaved around the shores and burnt our skin for the first time in a year.
Back at the cabin, the wood burning stove brought us to a level of relaxing only few truly know. The kind of calm where you not only forget to look at the clock on your phone, but where you forget that time itself exists, that an outside world exists, that hustle and bustle ever played a role in your personal well being. Here, we learn from the ephemeral blooms that everything comes in cycles, and that if we wade a little while through the murkiness, we will stumble upon a sun lit meadow made for frolicking deer.
Maybe the mountain woods make me too soft. After a long weekend, I start to melt and my hard edges fade away. Everything is light and I can carry it all. There is plenty to go around and we are all willing to share. The mountain woods make me love with all of my senses. I hear the love in the babbling brook and almost constant wildlife communication. I taste the love in the fish given to us by a fellow lake-goer with a boat. I smell the love in the burning logs gathered from around our cabin. I feel the love as the soft breeze blows, sending shivers to my soul and a smile to my lips.
I see the love literally everywhere I look, even carved into the entrance to the bedroom.
Blue Ridge, Georgia
May 2020
Kelly Green Guilbeau 