moss and memories
i took cassie to college on friday. we were late, but for once it didn't matter. we followed our own schedule and got there in our own time. after dropping david off at work at 4 am, i just stayed up. after packing, getting gas and starbucks (there is none in banner elk) (!!!), as well as stopping at wally world and micky d's, we got to the glorious touristy sublet of boone by 9 ish. the closer i got, the more i recognized and the more i got excited in my own little way.
see, when i was little, my family would go once or twice a year to sugar mountain (famous for its ski slopes, hot cocoa, and snow bunnies), which is apparently not five mintutes from lees mcrae, cassie's new home. the ski resort was our backyard at the hemlock knob condos, and the adjacent golf course was our playground. as many times as we walked that course, i think i've seen people playing a game of golf only once. we would stand on top of this one hill with a boulder that, if you were at least four foot tall, you could clamber up and see a world five foot taller. it was such an accomplishment for me if i climbed that boulder. afterwards, my brother, two cousins, and i would lie on our sides and roll down the steep hill to the green. always i would be afraid of rolling into the pond (and encounter the fabled alligator) and always i would end up rolling off to the left. my head was thankfully heavier than my feet.
there was one time that we trekked through the woods at the bottom of the hill, spying for hints of white and even orange and yellow: missing golf balls. my brother collected at least two dozen of them that day. we lost most of them in our own backyard, hitting them with the bat for the dogs to chase.
in the other direction was the ski slopes, always dry and covered in tall grass when we walked them after dinner. there as one time we took our golden retriever for a walk there, and when it got quiet for a moment, we could hear a cat meowing. turning around, we saw our siamese following us, yards and yards away from the condo. amazed that she made it that far without getting lost or sidetracked, my dad picked her up and carried her the rest of the way back.
just before the clearing of the slope is a stream where i first discovered the sparkling beauty of mica. we have pictures of us, none of us over five or six years old, dangling off the playset there, splashing in the water, or running down the bare slope.
the steep hill just behind the parking lot was a faerie haven to me. a tattered stump was their castle, and the mossy overhangs their own condos. it never failed that the first thing me and my brother would do as soon as we pulled up would be to challenge each other to see who could climb to the top, and thus the other road, the fastest. he would always win, but that never stopped me from practicing later on, despite the fact that our mom told us not to get ourselves dirty.
we stayed there for many christmasses, always together as a family. my grandmother would take the master bed downstairs, my aunt and uncle the first bedroom on the second floor, my parents the back bedroom, and all the kids slept in bunk beds in the loft. I *loved* it up there. you climbed a straight, carpet-covered ladder to get up there. there was a mini closet too small for anything but some pillows and maybe a blanket, but we always said somehow santa came through there and not the tiny chimney. maybe it was to believe in the excitement of having santa sneak by you at night. in my parent's closet, there was a secret storage that held spare skis and poles and other random mountain trappings. it was there we found a copy of pat the bunny. we knew even back then how surreal and somewhat inappropriate the story was.
childhood at that place was full of rolling, sliding, racing, and climbing. we would all slide down the stairs on our butts or bellies, giggling and carrying on until our parents told us to stop and settle down. our grandmother, who owned the place, would tell us not to climb on the davenport. she never called it a sofa or couch. we'd race to be the first to climb up to the loft or the first to climb down. whitney and i would play with our breyer horses by the open alcove of the loft. there was always cocoa and a fire, bright yellow '70's-looking vinyl chairs that creaked and groaned when you sat in them; there was always something to do, somewhere to go, and an endless floor to ceiling view of bare trees and winter grey skies.
there was one christmas whitney and i promised to get up and take a peek at our gifts before everyone woke. somehow, without watch or alarm, i arose and tried to get her to, as well. after no luck (and not wanting to wake my or her brother) i snuck downstairs with my blanket. first, i paused at the window by the stairs and stared out at the parking lot faerie knoll. the streetlight there was a bluish white, and the window was covered in frost. (so now every light like that reminds me of that knoll.) i'd once asked where the frost came from, and they said jack frost had visited in the night. so i paused there and imagined him flying around, touching everything with his cold, pointed finger and covering the mountain in ice. then i went downstairs in the dark, feeling over the bumps and piles for my stocking. i discovered that i had a stuffed kitten with yellow mittens sewn on. i, of course, called him mittens.
i didn't pause long, then, but walked to the expansive dining room window. my eyes soon adjusted, and i saw stars and the thin, trembling arms of the trees. then i saw something rather curious. a red light slowly moved in an arc across the sky. i gazed at it, soon realizing that it was not blinking, like plane lights did, and there was only one light, not three. my heart skipped. santa! surely he would know i was out of bed, spying on his handiwork. but instead of going to bed like a good girl, i hid under the table, under my blanket. only when i feared my parents finding me did i sneak back up to the loft.
my grandmother sold the condo just before my brother went to college. i never knew why. maybe she needed the money, or maybe she understood that we were all growing up, growing apart in some ways, and way too big to fit in the loft. i know that then if i challenged my brother to a race up the faerie knoll, he probably wouldn't accept. i guess it's good that part of us was cut off before the memories could be spoiled. but i gained so much from my time up there. the mast general store has become a special place to me, especially the candy barrel. going christmas tree shopping at the actual farms thrills me to no end. winter is made more special in the mountains, even though i think we only had one or two white christmasses. in fact, because of my time in banner elk, it made me want to make the mountains my home, and i have. now that i am here, i can't imagine living anywhere else.
so after i dropped cassie off, i took a slight detour to the condos. i remembered every curve, almost every tree, for i walked that road often. there was even one time it was too cold and icy to drive, so a few of us walked down the mountain to the convenience store to get supplies--firewood among them. once i turned into the parking lot, i realized that the tri-split of the entrance to hemlock knob haunts my dreams. i thought it was at wilson, and even though that was the setting, the actual backdrop was the entrance to the condos. (the subconscious is a wonderful thing sometimes.) in real life, what had changed was the drive itself: it was no longer gravel but paved. and now you had to have a permit and proof of rental to park there. i parked anyway, breathing in the smell of leaves and cold (it was 50 degrees that morning) and moss and memory. i wished i had my camera, and i wished my camera battery wasn't dead. i wished someone was with me--cassie, david, my unborn child. i saw her beside me then, four or five years old, excited to be on vacation and excited about the mountain almost as much as i was. i saw myself showing her how to slide down the stairs. i helped her climb the ladder to the loft and encouraged her on her trembling way down. i saw me and her and david, wrapped in scarves and long sleeves and jackets, walking on the golf course and admiring the changing leaves. once again i climbed the boulder and rolled down the hill. i found myself thinking my daughter could do all that this fall. we just had to find time. then i realized she wasn't even born yet, let alone four or five. there was a quick pang of sadness, but it was gone when i promised myself i would take her here in five years.
i can't get those memories back or live them again, but i will create new ones. i want my children to be in awe of what is around them and appreciate the little things, like the glitter of a stream bed, the slope of a hill, or the thought of a frozen faerie flying through the night and decorating everything he touches.
see, when i was little, my family would go once or twice a year to sugar mountain (famous for its ski slopes, hot cocoa, and snow bunnies), which is apparently not five mintutes from lees mcrae, cassie's new home. the ski resort was our backyard at the hemlock knob condos, and the adjacent golf course was our playground. as many times as we walked that course, i think i've seen people playing a game of golf only once. we would stand on top of this one hill with a boulder that, if you were at least four foot tall, you could clamber up and see a world five foot taller. it was such an accomplishment for me if i climbed that boulder. afterwards, my brother, two cousins, and i would lie on our sides and roll down the steep hill to the green. always i would be afraid of rolling into the pond (and encounter the fabled alligator) and always i would end up rolling off to the left. my head was thankfully heavier than my feet.
there was one time that we trekked through the woods at the bottom of the hill, spying for hints of white and even orange and yellow: missing golf balls. my brother collected at least two dozen of them that day. we lost most of them in our own backyard, hitting them with the bat for the dogs to chase.
in the other direction was the ski slopes, always dry and covered in tall grass when we walked them after dinner. there as one time we took our golden retriever for a walk there, and when it got quiet for a moment, we could hear a cat meowing. turning around, we saw our siamese following us, yards and yards away from the condo. amazed that she made it that far without getting lost or sidetracked, my dad picked her up and carried her the rest of the way back.
just before the clearing of the slope is a stream where i first discovered the sparkling beauty of mica. we have pictures of us, none of us over five or six years old, dangling off the playset there, splashing in the water, or running down the bare slope.
the steep hill just behind the parking lot was a faerie haven to me. a tattered stump was their castle, and the mossy overhangs their own condos. it never failed that the first thing me and my brother would do as soon as we pulled up would be to challenge each other to see who could climb to the top, and thus the other road, the fastest. he would always win, but that never stopped me from practicing later on, despite the fact that our mom told us not to get ourselves dirty.
we stayed there for many christmasses, always together as a family. my grandmother would take the master bed downstairs, my aunt and uncle the first bedroom on the second floor, my parents the back bedroom, and all the kids slept in bunk beds in the loft. I *loved* it up there. you climbed a straight, carpet-covered ladder to get up there. there was a mini closet too small for anything but some pillows and maybe a blanket, but we always said somehow santa came through there and not the tiny chimney. maybe it was to believe in the excitement of having santa sneak by you at night. in my parent's closet, there was a secret storage that held spare skis and poles and other random mountain trappings. it was there we found a copy of pat the bunny. we knew even back then how surreal and somewhat inappropriate the story was.
childhood at that place was full of rolling, sliding, racing, and climbing. we would all slide down the stairs on our butts or bellies, giggling and carrying on until our parents told us to stop and settle down. our grandmother, who owned the place, would tell us not to climb on the davenport. she never called it a sofa or couch. we'd race to be the first to climb up to the loft or the first to climb down. whitney and i would play with our breyer horses by the open alcove of the loft. there was always cocoa and a fire, bright yellow '70's-looking vinyl chairs that creaked and groaned when you sat in them; there was always something to do, somewhere to go, and an endless floor to ceiling view of bare trees and winter grey skies.
there was one christmas whitney and i promised to get up and take a peek at our gifts before everyone woke. somehow, without watch or alarm, i arose and tried to get her to, as well. after no luck (and not wanting to wake my or her brother) i snuck downstairs with my blanket. first, i paused at the window by the stairs and stared out at the parking lot faerie knoll. the streetlight there was a bluish white, and the window was covered in frost. (so now every light like that reminds me of that knoll.) i'd once asked where the frost came from, and they said jack frost had visited in the night. so i paused there and imagined him flying around, touching everything with his cold, pointed finger and covering the mountain in ice. then i went downstairs in the dark, feeling over the bumps and piles for my stocking. i discovered that i had a stuffed kitten with yellow mittens sewn on. i, of course, called him mittens.
i didn't pause long, then, but walked to the expansive dining room window. my eyes soon adjusted, and i saw stars and the thin, trembling arms of the trees. then i saw something rather curious. a red light slowly moved in an arc across the sky. i gazed at it, soon realizing that it was not blinking, like plane lights did, and there was only one light, not three. my heart skipped. santa! surely he would know i was out of bed, spying on his handiwork. but instead of going to bed like a good girl, i hid under the table, under my blanket. only when i feared my parents finding me did i sneak back up to the loft.
my grandmother sold the condo just before my brother went to college. i never knew why. maybe she needed the money, or maybe she understood that we were all growing up, growing apart in some ways, and way too big to fit in the loft. i know that then if i challenged my brother to a race up the faerie knoll, he probably wouldn't accept. i guess it's good that part of us was cut off before the memories could be spoiled. but i gained so much from my time up there. the mast general store has become a special place to me, especially the candy barrel. going christmas tree shopping at the actual farms thrills me to no end. winter is made more special in the mountains, even though i think we only had one or two white christmasses. in fact, because of my time in banner elk, it made me want to make the mountains my home, and i have. now that i am here, i can't imagine living anywhere else.
so after i dropped cassie off, i took a slight detour to the condos. i remembered every curve, almost every tree, for i walked that road often. there was even one time it was too cold and icy to drive, so a few of us walked down the mountain to the convenience store to get supplies--firewood among them. once i turned into the parking lot, i realized that the tri-split of the entrance to hemlock knob haunts my dreams. i thought it was at wilson, and even though that was the setting, the actual backdrop was the entrance to the condos. (the subconscious is a wonderful thing sometimes.) in real life, what had changed was the drive itself: it was no longer gravel but paved. and now you had to have a permit and proof of rental to park there. i parked anyway, breathing in the smell of leaves and cold (it was 50 degrees that morning) and moss and memory. i wished i had my camera, and i wished my camera battery wasn't dead. i wished someone was with me--cassie, david, my unborn child. i saw her beside me then, four or five years old, excited to be on vacation and excited about the mountain almost as much as i was. i saw myself showing her how to slide down the stairs. i helped her climb the ladder to the loft and encouraged her on her trembling way down. i saw me and her and david, wrapped in scarves and long sleeves and jackets, walking on the golf course and admiring the changing leaves. once again i climbed the boulder and rolled down the hill. i found myself thinking my daughter could do all that this fall. we just had to find time. then i realized she wasn't even born yet, let alone four or five. there was a quick pang of sadness, but it was gone when i promised myself i would take her here in five years.
i can't get those memories back or live them again, but i will create new ones. i want my children to be in awe of what is around them and appreciate the little things, like the glitter of a stream bed, the slope of a hill, or the thought of a frozen faerie flying through the night and decorating everything he touches.