Southern Legitimacy Statement: Cindy moved south kicking and screaming in 2015 with her partner, a leg man. He now stalks women on the South Carolina coast where she left him, while she’s made a home in the North Carolina mountains, resisting the urge to utter beloved colloquialisms she hasn’t yet earned.
Hurricane Season
I suppose there are people who despair of summer’s end, but I offer sacrifices to the gods
for its hazy demise. I’m ready to pitch myself from a fire tower from heat exhaustion by August
31st and prefer clear nights with bright stars over the steady sheen of perspiration I wear like a
slug from June through September.
Cooler temperatures trickle into the North Carolina mountains at night while you’re
sleeping and can’t enjoy it. Unlike my New England birthplace where it changes while you’re
folding the Labor Day beach towels. It’s still sweaty here now at September’s end, but the
shifting angle of the fuzzy sun, and the slow withdrawal of light draw me in like the first fire in
the woodstove back home. Except for hurricanes.
Catastrophic weather events have a way of putting life in perspective. While filling
buckets at the creek for flushing the toilet and removing layers of toxic sludge from walkways, it
occurred to me that surviving disasters both personal and global are not what I imagine for my
tombstone theme. In the five years I’ve lived here, I survived Covid, ridiculous rent increases
that forced me to move, and almost losing a job I love to budget cuts. A constant dose of nail-
biting anxiety. I thought Asheville would be my forever home, an artistic oasis in a craggy
valley. I thought beautiful surroundings and 347 breweries were enough. But it was a pitstop, a
place to recover from a nasty breakup. And now that I’m refurbished like your grandmother’s old
Buick, it’s time for a change.
Because as it turns out, connections are everything, and I’ve made few. Not for lack of
trying. Maybe we get a limited set. I can live with that, but they’re not here. So, I’m leaving to
snag a seat at the table beside the love of my life whose sustenance is sorely missed.
The love of my life. I’ve always assumed that was one person. That I’m just one
relationship away from that special someone. And maybe I am. But I’ve come to believe that my
family, and chosen family, are the love of my life. We’re bound together, tethered for eternity
like the Big Dipper and the Milky Way. Wherever they are, is where I want to be. Unless they’re
farther south. I’ll send letters and dry ice instead. My sister in coastal Florida breathes a sigh of
relief every November. Surviving hurricane season is no way to live.
So, where will I go? To Charlotte. I think. A city that was never on my radar but is home
to friends I’ve known for 45 years. Marriage, divorce, poor decisions, bad jokes; they know all
my secrets and still leave the light on like Hotel 6. We’d take a bullet for each other. Well,
maybe a punch. Or an insult. But you know, something terribly inconvenient.
The shadows are long as I stroll along a wooded path surprisingly unburdened by downed
trees in this post-hurricane apocalyptic scene. A female Cardinal hops along the decaying leaves
in front of me, then stops, and has a good long look in my direction. She seems unbothered by
my presence, so I pause and watch her peck at the ground. Another look and she flies off to let
me pass.
A cardinal portends good luck according to Native American lore. And cardinals are
often associated with hope and new beginnings. A sign that says go pack your bags. I’m still
waiting for the bird that predicts lottery winnings. But maybe that’s not a thing.
