Like this:

The Sound of… Nothing. 

I am tromping solo up a steadily climbing 3.5 mile trail to Lonesome Pine Overlook in the Smoky Mountains, and I’m conflicted, because this is my first day of vacation and I’m so caught up in the maelstrom that is ORCL (“the business”), that my mind keeps returning to all that business I have left to do, all that business I am in the middle of doing… I can’t turn my mind off. 

I keep pulling my attention back to the sensual autumn day.  The vibrant fall colors in the trees towering above me, their leaves twinkling and rustling, are so unlike Austin’s landscape.  I realize I hear the sound of – nothing.  No cell phone, no traffic, no music, no concalls, no people’s voices, no dull roar of airplane engine, no tap of computer keyboard, no whining child (!), no tv, no radio, not even the wind.   What a rare moment!

Higher I climb and the wind starts to pick up with a strong whoosh, but the sun is gaining altitude too, and the 70 degrees is welcome.  I feel the cool moistness of sweat dry on my skin.  Ahh.  I reach the outcropping, 3500 feet higher than I started, and take a seat seemingly on top of the world, humbled by nature’s magnificence below and all around me.  Yet still I struggle with the demands of relentless work crowding my mind. 

sacred view

Leaning back, I witness a cloud slowly dissipating before my very eyes – when’s the last time I noticed this?  – and yellow tulip poplar leaves swirling lazily upward, defying gravity.  I contemplate on the reason I treasure these mountains so,  ever since I first ventured this way at 19 with my sister Lisa and future hubby Mike T.  It is the sheer beauty – it bombards my senses, enticing me to disengage my mind and just BE – to feel that I am CONNECTED to all this, PART OF IT, that I am ALIVE.  

Well What IS the Purpose of Life Anyway?

I recall hiking these very mountains 25 years ago with my ever-philosophical younger brother Carlos and sister Michele.  He asked my view on the purpose of life (tramping in the woods is perfect for such ruminations).  Back then, my classic Anita narcissistic (unconscious) retort was: “why, that’s easy – it’s to have fun, to enjoy life!”  Today, for me, I know it is to evolve spiritually by loving and serving in the present moment.  I am not saying I do these all that well, mind you! but I am grateful for baby steps forward.  And my purpose today is not exclusive with enjoying life.  But then again, my definition of enjoyment is not the hedonistic one it was back then either.

As our vacation commences, I am able to dismiss my work obsession.  So often in daily life, I am with my family, present in body, but absent in my mind.  Now, I can relax on a porch swing with my daughter’s legs draped over my lap and no need to move, do, or plan.   I even become annoyed by the 50+ daily work emails that automatically download to my phone, (14 new messages!  22 new messages!)  and refuse to read them.  It’s funny – the three things I don’t need up here while camping: my cell phone, my keys, and my wallet – the three things I always check my pocket for anywhere I go in the “real” world.   

Swain County, North Carolina – God’s Country

To me, Swain County is the most beautiful place on earth.  Yet it’s such a juxtaposition of irony. Gorgeous scenery, and trailers dotting the landscape, with porches and front yards stacked with trash and the ubiquitous 5 junked-up cars. 

no one will steal it, lets sell it

 Backdrop of majestic mountains amid a preponderance of auto parts stores – the working class people fix their own trucks here.  Country folk with no pretensions and few teeth in their weathered faces.  Wonderfully descriptive names: Toot Hollow, Washaway Lane, Standing Deer, Tobacco Branch, Little Bear Lane, or Hangover Ridge, dragged down by 18% unemployment, the demise of the local economy due to manufacturing outsourcing, exacerbated by the recession.   Based on the for sale signs, the whole county seems to be for sale – tiny old boarded up houses everywhere. 

I met a man named Crash in his 60s with a signature grizzled mustache so long that it touched his chest astride a gorgeous brute of a red motorcycle.  He’d battled cancer 4 times and this time, he was not going thru with treatment.  He called the local lifestyle “the high cost of livin’ low”.    Hubby Ronny summed it up nicely by quipping “you know you’re doing good here when you can afford a double wide”. 

Which UT?

I’ve had the recurring urge to move back here for decades, ever since I fell in love with the area when I went to college at UT Knoxville back in the 80s.  I never followed through though, and now, I have other priorities – good schooling for Promise, Ronny’s family close by, I love Austin – it may never happen.  And yet.  Not ruling out the Mighty Vols for my girl if we can talk her into it when the time comes.  Til then, I’ll continue to visit every October to replenish my soul.  I’m reluctantly trading my orange and white T Mighty Vols mug for my burnt orange T Hook ‘Em Horns mug.  Luckily, the beef barbeque in Austin is as good as the pork barbeque here

Here’s a fast little banjo ditty from Ricky Scaggs that we listened to as we rode the Tail of the Dragon north (a winding road favored by motorcycle fiends): (“I may look like a city slicker shining up from my shoes… underneath I’m just a guitar picker, picking out a mess of blues…)

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