Well, given the fact that I’ve been removed from Kentucky for two months now, and in response to several fielded requests for a final post, I reckon it’s about time I tie up the loose ends of this blog for those of you who have been kind enough to follow along for the past year.
The last couple of months of my term of service with CAP went by impossibly quickly. I knew that they would, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel dizzy and out-of-breath on my last night at the Jackson House. I also knew that it would take a long time for the overall experience of the year to sink in and make sense. It still hasn’t completely come into focus for me just yet, so bear with me if this last commentary seems fragmented and confused. That’s pretty much how I’m feeling right now.
I’m working a real grown-up job now. Yep. I’m the west coast sales administrator for Regent Sports; Monday through Friday from 8:30 to 5:00. It’s my first paid job with a lunch break and health benefits. Given this economy, I know I’m extremely lucky. All the same, though, my plain beige cubicle and corporate attire is a far cry from rollicking around Owsley County in a muddy minivan and flip flops.
I was sitting at my desk today, staring at the computer screen and trying to make sense of its flashing numbers, when I heard music from the other side of the room. The local default office station was playing on my co-worker’s radio, and the song was Train’s “Hey Soul Sister.” Now, I know this song was played ad nauseum for the entire spring and summer of last year, but hear me out. I checked to see that the coast was clear, then closed my eyes and allowed myself to float away for just a minute.
I’m driving in my CAP car and the Kentucky hills are decked out in their full-blown springtime regalia. My friend, Jordan, has the new Train album, and we listen to that song over and over again with the windows rolled down and our hands making waves out of the wind. The gentle curves of the hollows are fresh and green, and the bright fuchsia blossoms of the redbuds seem to shout out at us from their high perches on the mountains. I can’t breathe in enough of the sweet air and I can’t even begin to believe that I get to live here for the next year.
I’ve got a van full of wide-eyed students who have come down with boundless enthusiasm to spend time with my participants; we’re on our way back from a field trip to Flat Lick Falls, and they’re alive with the feeling of water rushing over their feet and the constant sound of it cascading off the ledge and into the pool below. I see in their smiles and hear in their laughter the same unbridled joy that’s filled my soul since I first crossed from West Virginia into Kentucky. My co-pilot leans over and turns up Little Big Town’s “Boondocks” as loudly as it’ll go, and we all sing ourselves hoarse.
I’m sitting in the back of a dimly lit chapel, waiting for the funeral service of a participant to begin. The room is filled with people who recognize and acknowledge me, though I can’t say that I know all of them. Mary looks peaceful at the front of the room; she’s wearing a beautiful blue dress, which her daughter painstakingly picked out of her limited collection. Her great-granddaughter sits next to me, swinging her chubby little legs off the edge of the chair. The pastor talks about the ninety-five years Mary spent on this earth, while the grey heads around me nod and grunt in agreement. Suddenly, a woman with a wild mane of silver hair steps from behind a wall. She’s dressed in a startlingly bright turquoise dress and a guitar hangs in front of her. Her face is a mixture of pride and sadness as she strums the opening chords of “Amazing Grace.” Her voice tears itself from her throat, as raw as the hollow in which she was raised. I feel goosebumps raise up on my arms and I swear that, wherever she is, Mary’s got to be hearing every note.
I’m sitting on our porch with Ben in mid-September. I’ve lost count of how many cups of coffee I’ve had, but it’s a nowhere-to-go-and-all-day-to-get-there kind of morning, and I want nothing more than to listen to music I’ve never heard before and watch the light filter through the leaves around our tree house. He plays “Murdered in the City” by the Avett Brothers and I think of Brian, Casey, and Patrick and, before I know it, tears are in my eyes. I laugh at myself as I brush them off my cheeks and wish, as I do all the time here, that I could be sharing this part of my life with them.
I’m behind the steering wheel, in the passenger seat, or hunkered down in the back for one of many road trips with friends who have become family. I’m cruising through Tennessee on my way to meet an old friend on Beale Street, where we’ll croon “Walking in Memphis” to anyone who will listen. I’m en route to South Bend, Indiana, where the Avett Brothers will appear on stage and Annie and I will turn to each other with expressions of absolute ecstasy as we hear “January Wedding” start up. I’m being escorted through southern Indiana on the way back from Bange’s birthday party in St. Louis by Men At Work, who save a bunch of us from lurking troopers and an ungodly smell that seems to pervade that entire part of the state. And, despite stiff legs and completely abusing my poor Cobalt, I find myself craving the road more every day.
I’m dancing in the McCreary House to Walk the Moon’s “Anna Sun.” Since Kristen first shared it with me, I make everybody who comes into the house listen to it. The number of people in the trailer makes for a cramped dance floor, but we move close to one another and shout, “We got no money, but we got heart.” It encapsulates so much of what being a CAP volunteer is, and for the time being and for a long time after I want nothing but that.
I’m washing dishes after dinner and singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” even though it’s way too early to even start thinking about Christmas music. Nevertheless, and much to my housemates’ chagrin, I can’t help but hum the song as soon as frost starts appearing on our windshields in the morning. Christmastime means Braveheart pictures and tree-decorating and song-singing and movie-watching and tradition-sharing and Bug Childers-sled-riding. It also means the painful realization that, for me, this will soon be over.
I’m sitting in a near-empty bar with some of my dearest friends and very few others. Mitch Barrett and Owen Reynolds are playing a private concert for us; we’ve made our way from the back of the room to the front of the makeshift stage in the corner of the venue. I’m three days away from heading back to New York for good, and my greatest wish is that this night will never end. Empty beer bottles cover the table in front of us as we laugh and talk with the singers, and every song they play is better than the last. The boys close with “Drop in the Bucket,” and I promise myself that I won’t forget this feeling as my friends and I sing along.
“Wagon Wheel” is playing. I’m the rookie of the group, and we’re on our way to my very first contra dance in Berea. I’m nervous and out of my element and I’m told that everybody knows this song so I’d better like it. And I do. So they play it again for me. We sing it around bonfires where the heat feels like heaven on my bare legs as the ring of light cast by the flames keeps us safe from the big night; we walk away into the darkness smelling like smoke and starlight, and my room still smells that way in the morning. We make a habit of playing it at the end of every long journey. Rattling down Sand Lick in the dark, our driveway just coming into view, we sing it softly and somberly and almost reverently, and it feels like coming home every time.
“Yo, Bridget, where are you right now?” My head snapped forward and I whipped around to face Jose from the warehouse, who was laughing at me. “You’re a million miles away, baby.” I blushed as the other girls in the office chuckled and tried to refocus my attention on inventory and orders to be placed and salesmen to be dealt with.
My eyes drifted once more, though, to the Jackson House Christmas card I have pinned to my cubicle wall. I smiled back at the twelve other grinning faces that I know and love and miss to death. A gift from Kerri – a friend and housemate – sits next to my computer. It’s a framed copy of my favorite quote from one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs: “Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
I think a lot of folks embark on a “term of service” under the impression that it’ll be just that: a span of time with a beginning and an end that will expand their minds and be a wonderful experience to talk about for years to come. One makes the decision to leave the familiar for a little while; she takes a leap of faith and immerses herself in a different world and a different life. And before she knows it, she’s found herself deeply in love with this strange place. The dark and dusty corners that are seldom revealed and rarely explored illuminate her soul with their own quirky light, and she is never the same. She has discovered too much about herself and about the way things are and they way that they could be to ever be satisfied with “the same.”
Thank you so much for spending this time with me, reader. Whether I know you personally or not, the opportunity to share the most incredible year of my young life with you has been a true honor. I promise I won’t keep you waiting long for the next adventure.
Until then, keep giving the strangest places a second look.
