LJ Idol - Week 6: Solvitur ambulando
The rock that she carried felt like it had become part of her hand. Numb fingers became one with cold sharp stone. The rock was a weapon and with it clutched tightly in her grip, so was she. No one would pry it away from her. And no one would take the stolen settlers’ supplies that she carried without feeling it’s edge. Not if she retained the strength to strike.
Trahlyta was no longer a person with hopes and desires beyond survival. Staying alive took all her energy. It was hard. It hurt. Living so cold, day in and day out, did not feel good. But the cold on its own wasn’t enough to kill her. Staying alive as part of the cold sleeping landscape felt like all there was, and all there ever had been.
She hated seeing them. The people that were filling the valleys, creating their buildings and hacking out fields higher and higher had seemed weak at first, unable to unlock the secrets of the land. They built far from water. How would they carry enough back to their huge structures each day? But then they dug deep into the earth to tap water.
She had thought that they didn’t know where and when to find game, and where and when to forage plants, but she had been wrong. It wasn’t that they didn’t know. They didn’t care. It didn’t matter to them how best to harvest deer. They could and would kill all the deer. It didn’t matter to them. They brought their own meat animals wherever they came. It didn’t matter to them if they wiped out the beans and berries, for they had endless sacks of supplies. Even when their own crops, laboriously hewn into stony fields that once yielded native delicacies for which they had no names, failed for season upon season. Even when many of the settlers themselves died. There were always more of them and they always came with more supplies.
Seeing them down in the high valley reminded her that there was another way of being. That a person could be something other than cold and hungry and knife sharp. Her family had been right. It was too hard to survive here alone amid such a rising tide of them. But it was too late now to go with her people to another place far to the west and to the north. Trahlyta had made her choice to stay here, instead with her mountain, Wahsega.
She had thought at first that it would be easier when the rest of the tribe left, that she would have plenty of time to lay in the supplies that just one able person needed to live, especially with only herself to feed. She thought she would spend her days partially working and partially in contemplation of this place she had always loved, her stony mountain home. Being left alone without her family would be a worthwhile price for staying in this land to which she had such a strong connection.
Instead, this; her first winter alone, was the coldest winter she’d ever experienced. Instead, it wasn’t loneliness, but the struggle to account for basic human needs that plagued her. Most of the supplies her family had left with her, as well as those she had gathered over the rest of summer and fall were lost when a group of young settlers, intent on finding the rock balds at the top of Wahsega, happened upon her shelter and took everything, not even knowing that they were robbing her of what she needed to survive.
It was such a long way from the warren of rocks along the mountainside where she hid herself during the nights now to the closest water. But she had only the skin she’d been carrying the day her shelter was wrecked, and it held only enough water for a day or so. So she had to guard herself from being seen by the settlers as she made the trek down to the stream each day.
They caught glimpses of her sometimes, she imagined, and a part of her yearned for the confrontation that might bring. But the instinct to continue on, hidden and alive and free, won out.
She’d imagined someday dying alone as an old woman, perhaps weak and sickened, in a safe shelter beside a warm fire. She had not imagined this life. She hadn’t let them drive her away from her cold mountain, but she also hadn’t imagined that staying here could be like this.
****
“Mom, I’m really hot.”
“Well babe it’s cold outside and I’m driving,” but Ari already felt bad about how warm she was keeping the car. The dog was panting. Her husband was sweating. But she chilled easily, even wearing more layers than anyone else. And she’d been driving for so many hours. The others could remove layers. Except for the dog. She sighed and turned the vent up a notch.
She was a little worried about the dog riding sandwiched between her daughters in the back. The twisty mountain roads were finally beginning. Soon they would arrive and be able to start hiking.
Ari was ready for a couple of nights away from the world and out on the trail. Life had become so complicated this year. Normally she was able to camp a few weekends each month and recharge, but some of her favorite camping spots were still closed in the aftermath of last year’s hurricanes and work had been extra demanding of late. Not to mention the new demands of her daughters’ schedules as they continued to progress in school and sports. It was almost all good stress- the balancing act of full lives, really. But it could feel like too much after weeks on end of the endless little things.
Ari came around a corner and braked a little sharply at the new three-way stop where the stone-pile still stood.
“Hey, is the dog doing okay back there with this? Girls!”
“Mom, she’s fine, it’s just hot. I can’t wait to get out of this car.”
They would all be better when they got on the trail. Ari didn’t expect them to hike far enough to get out of cell phone range over the weekend. But even connected to the world, there was something about heading up the trail towards the rocky summit of Blood Mountain that helped reset her perspective. She was looking forward to it.
________________________________________
This new version of the Trahlyta legend was inspired by spending last weekend in the beautiful mountains where the original was born. Although Wikipedia doesn’t go into this, it is believed in the academic community that the Trahlyta legend is a story created by whites rather than by the Cherokee.
More on the legend here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trahlyta
And Stonepile Gap here: http://www.roadsidegeorgia.com/site/stonepile.html
Trahlyta was no longer a person with hopes and desires beyond survival. Staying alive took all her energy. It was hard. It hurt. Living so cold, day in and day out, did not feel good. But the cold on its own wasn’t enough to kill her. Staying alive as part of the cold sleeping landscape felt like all there was, and all there ever had been.
She hated seeing them. The people that were filling the valleys, creating their buildings and hacking out fields higher and higher had seemed weak at first, unable to unlock the secrets of the land. They built far from water. How would they carry enough back to their huge structures each day? But then they dug deep into the earth to tap water.
She had thought that they didn’t know where and when to find game, and where and when to forage plants, but she had been wrong. It wasn’t that they didn’t know. They didn’t care. It didn’t matter to them how best to harvest deer. They could and would kill all the deer. It didn’t matter to them. They brought their own meat animals wherever they came. It didn’t matter to them if they wiped out the beans and berries, for they had endless sacks of supplies. Even when their own crops, laboriously hewn into stony fields that once yielded native delicacies for which they had no names, failed for season upon season. Even when many of the settlers themselves died. There were always more of them and they always came with more supplies.
Seeing them down in the high valley reminded her that there was another way of being. That a person could be something other than cold and hungry and knife sharp. Her family had been right. It was too hard to survive here alone amid such a rising tide of them. But it was too late now to go with her people to another place far to the west and to the north. Trahlyta had made her choice to stay here, instead with her mountain, Wahsega.
She had thought at first that it would be easier when the rest of the tribe left, that she would have plenty of time to lay in the supplies that just one able person needed to live, especially with only herself to feed. She thought she would spend her days partially working and partially in contemplation of this place she had always loved, her stony mountain home. Being left alone without her family would be a worthwhile price for staying in this land to which she had such a strong connection.
Instead, this; her first winter alone, was the coldest winter she’d ever experienced. Instead, it wasn’t loneliness, but the struggle to account for basic human needs that plagued her. Most of the supplies her family had left with her, as well as those she had gathered over the rest of summer and fall were lost when a group of young settlers, intent on finding the rock balds at the top of Wahsega, happened upon her shelter and took everything, not even knowing that they were robbing her of what she needed to survive.
It was such a long way from the warren of rocks along the mountainside where she hid herself during the nights now to the closest water. But she had only the skin she’d been carrying the day her shelter was wrecked, and it held only enough water for a day or so. So she had to guard herself from being seen by the settlers as she made the trek down to the stream each day.
They caught glimpses of her sometimes, she imagined, and a part of her yearned for the confrontation that might bring. But the instinct to continue on, hidden and alive and free, won out.
She’d imagined someday dying alone as an old woman, perhaps weak and sickened, in a safe shelter beside a warm fire. She had not imagined this life. She hadn’t let them drive her away from her cold mountain, but she also hadn’t imagined that staying here could be like this.
****
“Mom, I’m really hot.”
“Well babe it’s cold outside and I’m driving,” but Ari already felt bad about how warm she was keeping the car. The dog was panting. Her husband was sweating. But she chilled easily, even wearing more layers than anyone else. And she’d been driving for so many hours. The others could remove layers. Except for the dog. She sighed and turned the vent up a notch.
She was a little worried about the dog riding sandwiched between her daughters in the back. The twisty mountain roads were finally beginning. Soon they would arrive and be able to start hiking.
Ari was ready for a couple of nights away from the world and out on the trail. Life had become so complicated this year. Normally she was able to camp a few weekends each month and recharge, but some of her favorite camping spots were still closed in the aftermath of last year’s hurricanes and work had been extra demanding of late. Not to mention the new demands of her daughters’ schedules as they continued to progress in school and sports. It was almost all good stress- the balancing act of full lives, really. But it could feel like too much after weeks on end of the endless little things.
Ari came around a corner and braked a little sharply at the new three-way stop where the stone-pile still stood.
“Hey, is the dog doing okay back there with this? Girls!”
“Mom, she’s fine, it’s just hot. I can’t wait to get out of this car.”
They would all be better when they got on the trail. Ari didn’t expect them to hike far enough to get out of cell phone range over the weekend. But even connected to the world, there was something about heading up the trail towards the rocky summit of Blood Mountain that helped reset her perspective. She was looking forward to it.
________________________________________
This new version of the Trahlyta legend was inspired by spending last weekend in the beautiful mountains where the original was born. Although Wikipedia doesn’t go into this, it is believed in the academic community that the Trahlyta legend is a story created by whites rather than by the Cherokee.
More on the legend here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trahlyta
And Stonepile Gap here: http://www.roadsidegeorgia.com/site/stonepile.html