Arts & Cliffs & Assured Change
I woke up at 5.30am to hike the Chimney Tops Trail in it’s entirety. It was as satisfying a hike as the Alum Cave Trail was humbling. The last stretch of the Chimney’s trail is as steep a climb as I’ve ever done without rock climbing gear and even my own heights-seasoned stomach took a bounce on my diaphragm looking down from the nearly vertical rock trail to the steep drops on either side.
I spent the morning on the mountaintop soaking in the sound of bees, the smell of Earth, Spruce, and Rhododendron, and watching the clouds shift and above me while I choreographed their movement into a dance.
On my way down I stopped to chat with a woman who was sitting paralyzed on the rocks, head in her hands. Her husband was encouraging her to keep climbing but she was not having it. I told her, in all honesty, that the point she was currently at was as hard to maneuver as it got. As I continued down the trail I heard her daughter whisper, “look at that girl, she’s practically vertical” which on rocks like these, where most people scramble on hands, knees, and butts is quite the compliment. “I’m ready,” I heard the woman say.
I savored the rush of Sureness that I feel on rocks like these where I can click in to a primal pattern seeking that carries me safely from rock to rock. I reached the bottom of the cliffs just as a man and his son were arriving. “You’d have to be a goat to climb that” the man said, looking up at the cliff face. I smiled to myself, secure in my knowledge that I am, once again, a billygoat. Then, lest I be smote down for hubris, I tightened both knee braces, grabbed hold of my poles and set off steadily down the trail.
Freshly showered and iced, I set out to explore The Glades. The Glades is an 8 mile stretch of land just outside the park that is packed with local artist’s galleries. I looked at pottery, paintings, photographs, artisanal olive oils, wines made of grapes grown only in Southern Appalachia, and the Salt & Pepper Shaker Museum.
Also, there are Bison in The Glades!
The crafting community is still thriving at my favorite craft school, Arrowmont, where I spent the evening at a picnic chatting with my favorite arts administrator, Bill May, and their artists-in-residence, one of whom is a textile worker and performer with a similar aesthetic to my own who I’ve gotten to know a little bit over the last week. She wants to get better at performing and I want to get better at making things with my hands. We have much to teach each other.
This is the beauty and the frustration of traveling. Emily and I could spend the next year teaching each other our respective skills for a few hours a week while pursuing other projects but eight hours of driving is a touch unreasonable for a weekly skill swap.
I feel simultaneously like I’ve been in the Smokies for three years and three hours. I’m just starting to know the back roads, the unbeaten paths, and to make friends here, and in a few days time I’ll be leaving this community, these mountains, and my little home in the park:
I attach to places early and often and letting go is not my strong suit. I like to hold things, examine them, put them down, watch them intently for signs of change, and pick them back up again, ad infinitum. I’m basically a raccoon. I see a thing I like and hold onto it even if that means I never get my head out of the glass jar it was in.
I’ve known my best friend since I was 2 years old, I’m in touch with friends from practically all of my travels, schools, and almost all of my ex-boyfriends. I get heartsick looking at photos of places I’ve been over the years and I have scrapbooks from decades of my life. I’m romantic, sentimental, and nostalgic. I used to cry on my brother’s birthday every year because even that was too much change for me to handle.
Nowadays, I like change. A lot. But when that change takes me away from daily access to valleys and hills, swimming holes, and craft communities, I have to keep reminding myself that I am really excited about 5th semester at APT, the Invisible River project I’m working on this Summer, Absurdist Dinner Parties, seeing shows in NYC and MA next month, and I have another NPS artist residency in August! Change is coming for me and I’m… r… rea… I’m read… y?
