Made it to the Mighty Mississippi!

(this is actually the banks of the Oconaluftee)
Today was an epic road trip day! We started out in that lovely haven of the hip hillbilly, Ashville, NC. I felt so right at home. Vermont, my native homeland, is kind of a northwoods Appalachia, and the combination of food traditions, folk art, local farms in the hills, a mixed population of hippies, yuppies and hillbillies, plus those lovely, comforting green mountains made me feel settled right in. This morning we were still pretty full from a dinner last night at the Tupelo Honey Cafe including fried green tomatoes on basil grits garnished with tupelo honey of course (yum!), and the butteriest, sugariest, yummiest pecan pie ever. Anyway, so we grabbed a quick breakfast bite and headed for the hills. The Smokey Mountains actually. We drove off of the highway and up and up through winding valleys. We stopped and bought some sourwood honey, fresh peaches and muscadines from a roadside stand. We were listening to Levon Helm's new album "Dirt Farmer", which is a beauty. He's returned to his roots and he's really got that 'high lonesome sound' as they call it. He's redone some old traditional songs, and his own songs blend with them seamlessly. There was one line sung in his ravaged voice that has been ringing in my head all day "I was born on this mountain, a long long time ago..." and then another sad one about a family that gets permanently separated from each other with a chorus of " I'll return to you dear, in the dimming of they day, as the sparrow return to the nest." As we entered into the Cherokee reservation, I was feeling overcome with waves of beauty and melancholy. In part from the misty, leafy, heartbreakingly beautiful scenery, in part from the sadness and struggle of all of the Cherokee and Appalachian people trying to make a living and hold onto their culture in this crazy world, and partly just sad because things can be just so beautiful, but they always have to change. Every time there's a change there is a loss. I know there is a gain too, but there is still a loss. Sometimes I get so sick of people and all our desires and dreams and projects and movement. I wish for a simpler life, a simpler time. There is an old Irish saying though that kind of sums up this way of thinking, "nostalgia isn't what it used to be." And I've tried the simple life and it turned out to be not that simple, and I am not a simple person, so a simple life may never actually work out for me....if such a thing could even exist anymore.
With me still slightly steeped in melancholy, we arrived at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center and walked the dogs along a trail by the Oconaluftee River. The sun shone through the leaves and dappled the river's surface. We stopped to turn around near a kiosk that said that rivers are sacred to the Cherokee, who would wash themselves in the river every morning to get rid of all bad thoughts and to bring themselves closer to their god. It also noted that 80 percent of freshwater originates in mountains, and that the water passing by our feet would end up in the Gulf of Mexico, to eventually evaporate and become freshwater again somewhere else. Now everyone knows this but I don't think about it much and that is some really cool shit! Certainly gave me an example of some healthy changes that take place in this world, and knocked my melancholy right on its ass.
We came out of the mountains and passed through Nashville for a late lunch of blackened grouper at BB King's. We asked the bartender if she was from Nashville and she admitted that no, no one in Nashville is actually from Nashville anymore. Well, maybe 5 or 6 people she said. She was from Michigan herself though she had acquired a bit of a southern accent. Tim asked her is she had country music ambitions and she said no, but her ex-fiance did, and that's how she came to be here. Now he's apparently moved on to Denver. Tim told her that she is living her own country music song. She agreed. That's about as much country music as we got in Nashville. On the way out we listened to a cd of "The Everybody Fields", a talented young group from Johnson City, Tennessee that I bet doesn't get much attention in Nashville these days.
By the time we left Nashville, and the hills changed into plains, all my bad feelings were washed away. We were rolling down the highway, listening to "Heart", (which Tim and I just discovered we both had a love of in the 80's.) We realized we ahve been on the road for a week already, (totally shocking somehow), and a week from now we will have spent our first night at our new home in CA! We were feeling pretty good and excited about our lives. After a few more hours we made it to Memphis, full of rocking and rolling energy. We drove into the city and caught a RedBird game, their local AAA baseball team. At the park I had a chicken stick for dinner, which looked like a shish kabob of very deeply friend chunks. The contents of the friend chunks ended up being not only chicken pieces, but also cheese, pickles, onions and potatoes, all fried to within an inch of their lives and put on a stick! Now that's an all-American dinner for you. Now we are parked for the night at a La Quinta owned by a very fastidious Indian family. There are lots of roses and fountains lit up with different colored lights outside, and inside everything is very clean and smells of various strange cleaning supplies. For example, the hallway smells like piney scented cleaning supply, the hallways smell like pepto-bismal scented cleaning supply, and the room itself smells like some kind of floral cleaing supply. They've done a lot of work and take great pride in their chain hotel here in Bartlett, TN. I'm glad I landed here.
Tomorrow we will cross the Mississippi. May that river as well wash away any bad thoughts and bring me closer to my God.