Georgia On My Mind

Ella Fitzgerald...no one else like her.

As far as I know, Atlanta's had a dry season, just as Kentucky has. While I was visiting, the area got some much needed rain and I had actually packed an umbrella, which meant I got to walk in the rain, something I haven't done in a long time. With moderate temperatures and steady rain, my walk took me over puddled sidewalks, pine straw from longleaf pines, and iron-rich soil that muddied and ran in red rivers. Many writers walk--to clear their minds, to fill their minds, to establish a rhythm in the body that carries over to the written word--so I don't know why it surprised me how cleansing and energizing a solitary walk could be.

One of the treats of the trip was a visit to the Georgia Aquarium. While the Tennessee Aquarium still ranks number one in my book, the Georgia Aquarium offered some great exhibits, including the whale sharks. I can't find words to describe these fish. I was spell-bound. If a trip to Atlanta isn't in your future, check out the Ocean Voyager web cam, where you might spot one of the giants gliding across your screen.

World-Wonder

While hiking in the Red River Gorge this weekend, I surprised myself with my world-wonder. Everything seemed new. Everything seemed camera-worthy. I probably frustrated S. with my frequent stops to snap a picture of some mushroom or tree or river rock.

Hiking this year has been markedly different from last year. Last year we had an extreme drought and consistently hot, humid days. This year the weather has been lovely, the best summer the area has had since we moved here. Though precipitation is still below normal, it has not been as drastically low as last summer.

Following a stream into the forest, crisscrossing the little creek several times, we hiked a trail that was new to us. The trail smelled of damp forest floor and smoky, smoldering campfires from the night before. At the top of a bluff, we stopped and lounged on a rock, our hunger fed by granola bars, our thirst quenched by water, our restlessness quieted by the peace of the place. The breeze rippling through the trees sounded so much like the water running through the stream below.

During the first half of the hike, we crossed paths a couple times with a man from Lexington. I'm guessing he was in his seventies. Bravo! I thought as some of the terrain was quite steep and challenging.

At a certain point we knew we'd have to turn around and backtrack out since continuing forward would be far too long for us, given the time, food, and water we had remaining. I was despondent. I wanted to see new parts of the trail, new mushrooms and trees and rocks. However, I was also fatigued and famished by this point. The second granola bar and more water would have to do, and my thoughts returned to the man in his seventies, driving his walking stick into the ground before him, moving forward. When the energy kicked in, I realized I was still moving forward too, one foot in front of the other, and to my delight, the return trip was new. How did I miss that yellow flower growing out of the stream edge the first time through? How did I miss those water skimmers clipping across the water's surface? How did I miss that particular music of our boots shifting the river rocks as we crisscrossed the creek? How could I think my world-wonder would leave me?

Mammoth Cave

What is the attraction of a cave? S. and I went to Mammoth Cave and toured through part of the cave system open to visitors. Early guide Stephen Bishop called the cave a "grand, gloomy, and peculiar place," and that's about as good a description as any. On the four-mile, four and a half hour Grand Avenue tour, we walked through gypsum lined passages, narrow canyons, underground hills, large rooms, and areas with dripstone formations. We experienced dry caves and wet caves. We saw cave crickets and bats. We learned about the geology, ecology, and history of the cave system.

Long have humans been fascinated with the cave, given the names of past visitors on cave walls, those from the mid-nineteenth century that had been charred on the cave with candle smoke and those from more recent periods that had been etched in the limestone, as well as given the artifacts that have been found, including Native American tools and bones.

I think I would have enjoyed the cave more if we could have explored it on our own, although I understand the reasons the group tours are a necessity (cave preservation and visitor safety). I found it hard to appreciate the full effect of the cave in a group of 80. Two of my favorite moments on the tour were when the lights went out. The first time was accidental as we were walking through Cleaveland Avenue. The second time the rangers turned out the lights and requested silence for a moment while we were seated on benches in a large room (Aerobridge Canyon, I think). That is when I came closest to understanding the cave: in total darkness, enveloped by the earth, nearly 300 feet below the surface, with only the sound of my own blood rushing through my body.

Perhaps there is some connection to why I'm a writer. I get a similar thrill writing--entering darkness and solitude and silence, where I must rely on my imagination to reveal the light and the sounds of humanity.

Visiting the Islands

The images from St. Thomas were so striking, so colorful and rich, and yet as time passes I find myself depending on the photographs to supplement my faulty memory. (Ah memory--shifting, shifty, shadowy, and misshapen--but that is for another post at another time.)

One thing I wasn't prepared for (probably because it's a U.S. territory) was that the island seemed more run-down than I expected. One taxi driver said (without our asking--so he could have told us anything, or nothing) that the island is much better off than the islands that do not receive U.S. funds. And I imagine part of the run-down quality is the very nature of any island; it is isolated, with limited natural resources, and it's expensive to get goods in and out.

Still, one image that came to mind was Eric Fischl's "A Visit To/A Visit From The Island." Certainly, Fischl's painting is the extreme, a diptych with the purpose of exposing issues of class and race. The visitors around us were not indolent (nor nude) and the islanders were not refugees washed up on the beach. So I must ask myself why my mind made an association with the painting. I suppose because there was a sense of two separate worlds, one of the vacationers visiting and having a good time, one of the islanders working and going about daily life. Doesn't this sense permeate any location that's a vacation destination, where tourists flit in and out on holiday, the natives' livelihood? I think what troubled me was I could not see what the vacationers' money funded. It's not cheap to visit St. Thomas (partly that island thing again--hard to get items in and out), but I would have felt better if it looked like the working class was benefiting from the money spent on its island.

More and more I see the issue of class (more than gender or race or any other) as the one we need to address most.