BLACKBERRY WINTER

The mountain people call it Blackberry Winter. Just as the first pure white blossoms appear on the vines, the temperature drops and the weather stays chilly for quite a few days. I enjoy this temporary halt in the mad growth and greening. It is a quiet pause before the earth yields to the riot of fecundity we call summer. The scent of wild roses, also in bloom, is piquant and pure in this cocktail of oxygen and cool, damp air.

Once again I take out companionable sweaters or reach for my homespun afghan in the night when the temperatures dip low enough to require extra covers on the bed. The pup, nearly grown, shivers in the mornings and regresses to her need to cuddle on a lap, burrowing into a soft blanket. These pleasures seem superior to the constant beckoning of the outdoors during spring and summer. The people of Spruce Pine are devoted gardeners, both of veggies and flowers, and the sight of their handiwork puts my hours of fiddling or journaling to shame. Dig in the earth, people tell me. Send away for catalogs. Plan your garden. It’s very therapeutic.

I want to belong to this community, but the lust for coffeehouses, cafes, films, and bookstores is still strong in me, though it’s now almost four years since we left our urban lifestyle in Chapel Hill to live here in relative isolation from The Stuff. I am weak and spend time shopping on the internet now that our limited budget and the soaring price of fuel makes the one hour trip to Asheville a luxury rather than a casual option to simple country days. I should be buying tomato plants but I’m on eBay looking for a spring handbag.

Owning acreage on the side of a mountain was not one of my life goals, but now that it has happened, I find it has ups and downs like any relationship. Some days I am overcome with love for the familiar trees, the rushing of the creek after a good rain, the mounds of quartz embedded in the soil, the shining flecks of mica everywhere. Others, the silence and beauty do not call me. Instead I long for the stimulation and buzz of culture. My heart is here; my mind wanders elsewhere.

White on White

The White is not a kind, benevolent teacher. It is a trickster, a shape-changer -- beautiful, but terrible. Many people believe these mountains are home to fairies and ghosts. This photo of a twisted bittersweet vine looks to me like a long creature with legs ending in giant bird- claws, ready to fling back its hoary head in laughter once no one is watching.

Last time I went into the White, about ten days and a four-day thaw ago, I climbed a steep rise to sit on a fallen tree trunk and observe the Blue Ridge, visible through the standing line of bare trees. Another animal had been where I walked in the snow. The prints were about the size and shape of a dog’s. Just as I crested the hill, the tracks led up to and through the V shaped opening of a split sapling. An instant picture of my pet tiger cat and her love of flirting through small spaces appeared in my mind, and I felt certain that the tracks had to be those of a large cat. Wildcats have been spotted on our land and in the adjoining Pisgah National Forest.

I was too far from the house to be heard by my husband if I hollered for help. The steady drumming of my heart as I climbed higher turned into the need to open my mouth and pant.

Breath and breath and breath.

Afraid. Afraid, but not turning back, my legs stubborn and willful, I kept on till I passed through the narrow opening we call intention, choice, or risk. Any of those words that mean doing something you’re scared to do. What was the alternative? Slinking back to the house, knowing that I’d abandoned a goal (albeit a tiny goal) out of fear, or laughing about it over the phone with a girlfriend, sipping a cup of cocoa, covering my failure with wit, making it a funny story? Lame.

Stray Plenifora branches, with wicked red thorns, insinuated themselves under my coat and sweater, scratched my belly. They dove into the top of my rubber boots, caused bright welts on my right leg, wounds I only discovered later, in the bath that night. I wondered if the marks were some kind of rash, until I recalled the woods and recognized the shorthand of the wild upon my flesh: the consequence of my intrusion, the sharp price of admission to the White.

Moving Mountains

When we moved to Spruce Pine from Chapel Hill in 2007, I had to put all my cute sandals aside and wear sneakers 24/7. On top of that blow to my inner Barbie, I developed really bad plantar fasciitis (the doc called it plan-tar fash- itis) in my right foot, which because I had no time to rest during the frenzy of moving, became so inflamed I could barely walk. When my husband Pat and I would go for evening strolls by the Toe River, I felt like I was using a new, unruly set of feet; they behaved unpredictably. I had to think about each footfall.

Hadn’t I asked to learn to live in the present; wasn’t this the goal of my most earnest prayers and meditations? Yes, but I had forgotten that most life lessons are orchestrated by that wise teacher, pain. What happened to me? I slowed down, because I had to. I started looking around. Where was I? In the Blue Ridge Mountains. Surprise, Surprise, as Gomer Pyle used to say. Not an Old Navy or a Starbucks in sight. The only chain store in our sleepy town is a Walmart, and it is a hub of homey activity: bake sales outside the doors on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons, kind senior citizens who serve as greeters at the doors.

While my foot was healing I ducked into a store to look for some sensible supportive sandals. I’d been suffering from plantar fasciitis, I told the salesgirl, who furrowed her forehead. “I had somethin’ like that,” she said. “But it was called Planetary Faskee-eyeteez.” We stared at each other. She laughed. “I guess that’s the mountain way of callin’ it,” she said.

I have loads more to learn about the mountain way. It means dropping the notion that a Masters Degree from Chapel Hill is anything more than a certificate proving I have experience in only one domain of life. There are mountain schools of mystery about which I know nothing: like the names of the early and late spring cycles, the signs of a cold winter, the unlikelihood that plants will grow under a black walnut tree, the dangers of eating a mushroom that’s grown on a hemlock.