Category Archives: Resiliency
Detours, Doubts, and Destinations
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, we left our campground in Fancy Gap, VA heading south on the Blue Ridge Parkway through the Appalachian Mountains destined for Stone Mountain State Park just across the state line in North Carolina. We anticipated an approximate 45-minute drive followed by some fun hiking. We noted the expansive vista at Piedmont Overlook and commented on the numerous residences and rolling hills of perfectly aligned rows of very green bushes. Only later did we surmise that they were Christmas trees! We questioned the origins of flawless green meadows, aka balds, along the ridgeline some dotted with brown rolls of hay. Were the balds natural or had they been cleared? Perhaps a combination of both.
These sights were different from our earlier drives along the southern parkway near Asheville, NC where there were no residences in sight nor open meadows as we drove through densely forested slopes rising high on one side and plunging steeply on the other.
We were making good progress, and all was going well until we saw the sign, “Road Closed Ahead,” an ample warning for the upcoming barricade and huge “Detour” sign both decked out in bold highway orange. We followed the detour signs even as we sensed they were taking us back north instead of our intended south. Initially, the signs were clearly marked “Blue Ridge Detour South.” We entered a small town and passed a sign that simply read “Detour.” We began to doubt that decision, turned around and followed the sign driving into a residential area which seemed odd for a highway detour.
Shortly, we saw one of those portable, flashing, marque highway signs declaring “Blue Ridge Detour, No Thru Traffic” which seemed contrary to the nature of a detour. We passed it, doubted our decision because I had seen an orange sign just beyond the directed turn. We turned around, made the right as indicated and within a block saw the orange sign detouring us back to the left. At that point we encountered an open gate – “Detour” sign on one side, “Local Use Only” on the other — and drove into a pumpkin patch. Hummm??
The road through the huge pumpkin field appeared to be relatively new white shale and gravel. We surmised that the highway department must have made this improvement for the detour as the other roads weaving through the pumpkin path were rutted dirt. We also saw a gray car moving ahead and below us through the terraced pumpkins which buoyed our optimism that we were on the right road. We were in awe of the pumpkin patch. As far as we could see were green vines dotted with various sizes of orange and occasionally green pumpkins. I must confess that I secretly desired to stop and pick a pumpkin but ultimately decided that would not be a wise thing to do. Ominously, the road narrowed, and we met the gray car coming back out. Not a good sign!! Momentarily, we too encountered the machinery and barricade, “Road Closed.”
Back we went through the pumpkins to the flashing detour sign to discover that it read, “Blue Ridge Detour Ahead.” Sure enough, a couple of miles farther was yet another detour sign, again not indicating “Blue Ridge,” that took us down a winding country road. The next sign of note was “Pavement Ends Ahead” which indeed it did, leaving us driving on a narrow gravel road at times passing through trees just wide enough for the car and boasting a steep drop off to the left and a densely forested mountain side to the right. Just a bit spooky!
Already weary of the detours and the doubting, I had entered Stone Mountain into our GPS. We reached an intersection with a paved road where the GPS indicated a right turn. In the middle of the intersection turning around was the little gray car of the pumpkin patch. A barricade blocked the right turn! We spoke to the car’s lone occupant, and she, like us, was baffled and frustrated. Her comment, “Would you believe I just drove through a pumpkin patch.” We all chuckled as we shared that we had done the same. She was from Belgium and was trying to get to Asheville. The country roads and directions were foreign and confusing to us, we could only imagine her experience of them. We wished her well as she decided to turn around and go back. We chose to turn left and let the GPS recalculate a route to Stone Mountain.
A 45-minute drive became two hours. Ultimately, Stone Mountain was well worth the extended trip. Stone Mountain itself was majestic and naturally beautiful. Unmarred by any elaborate carvings as seen on the perhaps better known Stone Mountain outside of Atlanta, GA. The hiking trails offered solace and some solitude. The water music, tumbling and gurgling over the creek bed rocks or gushing as it rushed over the various falls at heights of two to twelve to 200 feet, was soothing and calming in its sparkling clarity and consistency. A special delight was hearing the trees sing as they swayed and hummed in the wind. All thoughts of the detours and doubts vanished under the serene canopy of the forest.
Stone Mountain Falls Trail. Stone Mountain Falls. Widow Creek Falls.
Pull up, Level off!
I lay in bed this morning way too early to be awake, unable to go back to sleep, and taking a nosedive into a shit storm of shame and fear – to use Brene’Brown’s vernacular. Self-talk was descending, once again, into Why did you. . . why didn’t you. . . you should have known. . what’s the point? During all that, I heard, “Pull up, level off!” We know the scene. The plane is going down and someone in the cockpit yells “pull up, level off.” Disaster is averted, and all ends well. Well, at least the plane lands and all appear physically intact.
The storm of shame and fear has been ongoing for several days alternating from tornadic intensity to relative calm. I’ve done the work — several years of it in fact many years ago — addressing the obvious anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts as well as the lurking, menacing feelings of shame, fear, anger, not good enough, etc. Yet, in some moments of conflict, personal fallibility, and disappointment, I find myself pommeled by the storm, again. I suspect all of us humans experience some levels of shame and fear from time to time, and I wonder if those of us with a long history of shame, fear, anger – all that stuff we don’t like to acknowledge or talk about – and subsequent mental health issues are more prone to the storms. That’s a hard reality for me.
At any rate, I do know the storm drill, and it does require pulling up and leveling off. Although, I had never thought of it in those terms. Pull up, resist and reverse the downward spiral of self-talk. Level off with some truths of my humanity such as I am human. I am both capable and fallible, I am enough and lacking at times. I am loved and loving. I am courageous and fearful. I am a both/and. Fly out of the storm.
For me, flying out is usually a bumpy, doable ride often made easier by sharing with someone I trust who will listen with empathy, compassion, and perhaps shared vulnerability. Heaven help us if we truly are alone in our experiences of the shame, fear, anger storms. Judgement and catastrophizing are not helpful – I’ve already done enough of that myself. Guidance for any next steps may be helpful.
As I said, I have done lots of work gaining insights into my shame, fear, anger, etc. Unfortunately, insights don’t necessarily eliminate the occasional storms. In this current storm I have been drawn to the image of a six-year-old little girl alone outside hiding, crying, trembling, and clinging to the corner of the school building.
I say image because I experience this memory as if I am above it, watching it unfold. It was in the spring and our first-grade classes were dismissed at noon for Roundup Day – an afternoon for next year’s first graders to come register for school. I did not know what I was supposed to do to get home. The usual routine, walking home with my older sister or Mama picking us up, was not possible. My sister was still in class, and Mama was not there. I became a small speck on the yellow brick wall.
Someone found me and my teacher just hugged me. Surely, she said some things, but the scene I watch is silent. She took me back to the classroom, brought me a lunch tray, and let me show the rising first-graders around when they began to arrive. When Mama came to pick us up, my teacher told her what had happened. Again, from above I watch as Mama gives me a finger jabbing “tongue lashing” right there in the school breezeway in front of my sister, my teacher, and anyone else that was passing by. Mama grabbed my arm and walked-dragged me to the car continuing the scolding, finally with sound, “You should have known. . .” I still have no idea what I should have known.
As the current shame and fear storm has punched the “play” button on this memory, perhaps for the first time ever, I have connected viscerally, with the fear and shame felt as a child so long ago. Even though I lived in the shadows of those feelings for decades, it is painful to imagine the impact of these feelings on that little soul.
Now for the bumpy, but doable, ride flying out of the storm. I am human. I am enough. I make mistakes. I can and will own my mistakes. Mistakes do not define who I am. I am not a mistake.
Pilgrim Seeker Heretic 