Sprinklers and Soul Death
Spirit disguised as soggy shoes.
2021 was a nightmare steeped in two mistakes.
1)I moved from the beach to a rural mountain town with my partner, and
2) my sister and her three dogs joined us.
Oh, the romance of it
As a city girl, I had an idyllic dream of homesteading and “living off the land.” This was pre-COVID. Like my father before me, I’m very cutting-edge.
I planned to grow vegetables and raise Peking ducks for eggs. Days would be spent learning to wildcraft and make medicinal tinctures with plants from my backyard. It would be peaceful and restorative. I had the books to prove it.
The books led me astray.
Instead, I moved to an unincorporated cesspool of meth and misogyny. A neighbor called my sister a f’ing c*** within 72 hours of our arrival. A month later, my partner was assaulted by a stranger a block from our home-ON OUR OWN STREET.
Caveat: our street was actually a major highway. Never, EVER rent a place sight unseen.
The next 14 months were like soul school for gifted kids. None of us escaped untraumatized.
I’ve experienced much growth over the past 47 years, but the year on Pisgah Highway forced…
