Coves, Cascades, and Existential Crises
Sheridan was outside my door at 6.40am with five minutes to spare. I must admit, I did not see that coming. In the hour long drive to Cade’s Cove, two exciting things happened. First, we ran across a Bear Jam: a traffic jam caused by a bear, or rather, people taking pictures of a bear.
Bear jams, as it turns out, are a time honored tradition in the Smokies:
The second exciting thing to happen was that Sheridan nearly ran us off the road and into a creek. She later referred to it as a “very special moment.” Now, I’ve been in the car with drivers who’ve run us off the road ::coughcoughCarrieMartinellicoughcough:: and not once has “special” been the word that comes to mind.
With a new lease on life, we hopped on bikes lent to us by volunteers Dorris and Myron and within 2 minutes I had lost Sheridan. I searched the area to no avail. Just as I was beginning to wonder how we would ever get through the 11-mile loop by 10 am when they reopen the road to cars, she sheepishly rode up and said, “I went to go find coffee but wouldn’t you believe, nowhere was open.”
After that I felt no qualms about breezing ahead. I felt that wonderful sense of abandon that comes with inhuman speed as I coasted down the first hill. And just like that, Cade’s Cove:
There were turkeys and deer in the high grasses, little wooden churches and tucked away cemeteries.
I even ran into my favorite all-lady family. “What are the odds!” we all said as we walked our bikes up a particularly steep hill.
Now, truth be told, I don’t have a great track record with bike riding. The biggest scar on my body is from falling off a bike, a broke a leg falling off a bike into a marsh in Holland, and I don’t really know what any of the gears actually mean. So there I was, ripping new holes in my alveoli as I pumped my legs up a hill in what had to be the wrongest gear possible when the Lycra Mafia calls out “passing on your left!” and swooshes by in their fully-endorsed, neon onesies and polarized sunglasses. To make it all the more humiliating, they’re all heartily laughing at some joke I’ll never know because I’ll never be within earshot of them again. I mean, I have polarized sunglasses! Why aren’t I swooshing, too?! And then some dude in cargo shorts and sandals whizzed past me and I hung my head in shame.
I considered flinging myself at the wild turkeys because death by turkey peck is still more dignified than the hunchbacked, wheezing I was currently exhibiting but there was a pancake breakfast at the end of the ride to carry on living for.
Christine, one of the select guests at last night’s dinner party, directed me to the maintenance office and told me to go through a door labeled “something about chemicals.” Hunger outweighed common sense and I entered to find a perfectly cozy dining area adorned with posters of what to do if you get poisonous chemicals in your eyes and a buffet of delicious food, most of it cooked up by Dale, the head maintenance guy in the park with a beard nearly as impressive as his cooking. I made more friends, ate so much food, and reunited with Sheridan, who made it about a half-mile into the loop before stopping to take a nap on the side of the Hyatt Road. I respect that.
Full of free breakfast with eight hours of sunlight left in the day, I headed out to hike Ramsey Cascades Trail.
The first mile was so flat I almost quit out of righteous indignation that this hike should be billed as a “moderate intensity” trail but the terrain improved with elevation:
By the time I reached the top I was just as giddy as I was on top of the Chimneys.
I soaked my feet in the freezing water, cupped my hands to drink from the falls, and made friends with a little girl named Jessica and her twin sibling who wanted nothing more than to tell me every single detail of their (to date rather short) lives.
While I smiled away an afternoon in this little Shangri-La I began to wonder what I was doing. Now, I don’t mean the crippling fear that I’ve chosen to perform storytelling theater- for really the first time ever- in the Appalachian Mountains, home to some of the finest story tellers in the world. Not that that’s been on my mind. What I mean is, what I am doing living in a city, working indoors most of my days, looking at more drywall than waterfalls. About 83% of my free time is spent applying for artistic gigs in the mountains. As my hero, John Muir, puts it:
“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
The mountains are where I am happy; where I enter life. If I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t even really want to perform right now. Sure, some of that feeling, if not all of it, is fear; fear that my audience will hate me, that I’m a huge fraud, and that I don’t have one ounce of creativity worth sharing. Most artists, regardless of their level of “success” feel this to some degree. I’m also coming out of 24 straight months of generating, producing, and performing new work. It’s enough to burn anyone out. I know that this fear will pass but that doesn’t mitigate the current feeling that all I want to do is be alone in the woods.
Self-growth and artistry are inextricably linked. I have- and will continue to- advocate for a world where artists can take time to make work and observe the world without the pressure of constant performance or product making. Some artists need time to let ideas percolate, to go off to the mountains and remember what it is to be human, to be animal, to be a part of something greater than human civilization. How can I make the kind of work that reminds others of our capacity for simplicity and wholeness when I don’t remember what it feels like myself? I believe very deeply in making work that speaks to these sensations but giving myself permission to just be in that state is a complex challenge that involves untangling the nuances of a lifetime of social expectations and a myriad of guilts. It will take time. However, today I’m taking the advice I’d give to someone who isn’t me and putting in the work to be happy, one waterfall at a time.
