After 18 months of living in Baltimore, it's felt good to get back to the earth—let my toes sink into the grass and dirt, rooted; look around me as I wind my way through these profound mountain roads; exhale deeply each time I find myself inside of another peaceful sunset after I’ve settled for the night, letting it fill me.
By the time I arrived at the campsite near Weaverville, North Carolina, last night, it was nearly dusk—just enough time to see the grounds, find a place to camp, and set up my tent. It was a lot more remote than I’d realized. Unimaginable beauty but remote (the two, obviously, go hand in hand).
The gravel, uphill road that led here was unexpected. I felt as if my car might fall apart as it bounced and bumped its way to the top—or simply not be able to make the climb, as the odometer dropped from 7 miles per hour to 5 to 4, as I pressed on the gas pedal.
Once there, a small path led me from the “parking lot” to the camping area in a small meadow among the mountains, where there was an open-air kitchen with a refrigerator, sink, and a stove (though I couldn’t figure out how to work it); a wooden platform designated as a yoga deck (complete with a goddess statue); a compost toilet outhouse, which was actually adorable; and the cutest hobbit house ever, a cob house with a grass roof that the owners have been working on.
As I looked around the property, I spotted an animal, solid black, hop into the tall grass—which was as high as my waist, at least. I didn’t get a good enough look at it, but what could it have been, if not a bear cub?
I mused over it, bear mace in pocket, as I set up my big tent quickly, made dinner, and then got in my tent just as the sky went dark. The tent provides the illusion of safety, at the very least. There’s something about stepping out into total darkness, alone, to pee in the night, that is unnerving. With a little headlamp on, all you could really see is an animal when it’s about five feet in front of you, i.e., when it’s too late for you to do much of anything.
So I arranged my bedding, changed my clothes, got cozy, and then very quickly realized that the tent was problematic for another reason: I’d decided, in a rush, to forego staking it, thinking that a tent seldom needs stakes when it's weighed down by me and all my things. Not so. The winds got so strong after dark, I genuinely wondered if it were scientifically possible for the tent to lift off of the ground and carry me through the air with it, like some cartoon.
They hadn’t called for a storm, and I didn’t remember the winds being particularly strong earlier in the day in Asheville, but nonetheless, there was something about that area, as if the wind just swirls around that little mountain cove each night.
I listened to it move through the trees, going from ridge to ridge, while I lied in my tent. And then I sat up rigidly and braced myself each time that I suspected it was about to come billowing through, centering myself in the middle of the tent, watching as its walls got blown inward, shrinking deeper and deeper toward the tent's center—me—until all walls were practically touching.
I finally decided I needed to stake the thing, even if it meant being out in the crazy winds in the darkness, at the mercy of the night and its beasts, wherever they are. After doing that, I was a little calmer, though the winds still sounded as if they could rip the tent from its stakes or snap one of the poles that were holding up my little home. Finally, I was able to fall asleep. The winds, loudly flapping my tent, woke me up again and again throughout the night, each time leaving me wondering whether my tent would be destroyed and end in a heap of nylon mess just lying on top of me in my sleeping bag.
But in between the anxieties that come with traveling alone, there are moments. Moments of great beauty. The sky turning peach and pink before exiting into total blackness. The fireflies flickering against the rolling, tree-covered hillsides. And morning, when the tent becomes perfectly still. It's quiet now, but a multitude of birds.