i am certain of very few things. one thing i am close to being certain about is that i am not meant for the city, for fine culture, or even for ease. it’s not that i don’t appreciate these things – i do, very much – but i feel like there is a feral streak in me that has always craved the forest, the mountains, the edge of civilization. i want to witness all of humanity, but at a safe distance from it. this is where my nervous system relaxes and i can sink into being something i know as myself. i speak brusquely but mean no harm. i am kind and loving but i am not nice. i am naturally rough around the edges and feel comfortable with those who are the same.

when i have been put in the city, or in fine culture, or in places encouraging ease, i have felt out of place. i kept quiet or kept up a charade in the name of fitting in, but my head was always spinning and my sleep was terrible. i sought refuge in people who were still wild, despite the environment. when i lived in a city, i only felt comfort when my downstairs neighbor would blare opera music with his door open. he reminded me of a professor i had in art school who would blurt out totally inappropriate comments without embarrassment. he wasn’t trying to be a shit-stirrer, he was just working things out in real time. once he went off on a rant about how pregnant women can’t run and every mother in the audience started yelling at him. he threw up his hands and shrugged in defeat, not caring in the least when he was wrong. i gravitated towards people who could fully exist as themselves without fear of judgment. 

i could not figure out how to allow myself to be that free until i moved to appalachia.

appalachia is not a friendly place. we have the tallest mountains this side of the country who appear foreboding long before you even reach them. the people have a demeanor to match and are very unwelcoming of outsiders (somehow the exact opposite of the people i appreciated in the city). in place of money, nice clothes, and expensive cars, there is an ingenuity and the know-how to survive an environment that doesn’t pretend to care about you. the unyielding shapes that nature takes on here are dangerous. tales of monsters are alive and well. i am faced with death every day, doubly so after the hurricane damage. sometimes i wonder if the people who own vacation homes here are masochistic. i don’t know why else you’d drop hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend a few weeks out of the year in a place that is actively telling you “no”. 

anyways, this is the environment that cracked my facade and allowed me to finally breathe. even in the bleakest moments, i love it here. i am learning how to be fully myself here. i don’t want to leave. but with the current state of this country, i’ve had to look at potential safehavens elsewhere in the world. if i had the freedom to go anywhere, where would it even be? i try to be realistic and look at places that would be good for my kids, for my health, for potential job opportunities. but i can only imagine myself in a place as rough and wild as appalachia. when i look at a map, my eyes keep drifting to where these mountains were split during pangea.