a document of days

Though fairly close to Boone, Ryan didn’t spend much time in Asheville when he was a student at Appalachian State University. We were tourists in Asheville. We spent much of our time walking around, shopping, looking at local art, sampling local beer, and talking to bartenders, waiters, and the occasional artist. When we set out for Boone, our experience changed drastically. For me, each moment was new and inspiring, but this was a trip through the past for Ryan; each moment was flooded with memories of how life once was.

After driving the narrow and winding roads through the mountains, Ryan veered right and parked the car in an abandoned lot on the side of the highway. We got out of the car and he motioned across the street to his first apartment in Boone.


While the Coffey Break Apartments weren’t much to look at, I was thrilled to be standing before a place that I had heard so much about. But that wasn’t what we had pulled off of the road to see. On Ryan’s heels, I struggled down a small cliff, grasping at branches as my feet slipped on the gravel. He’d told me all about “his boulders,” the rocks on which he would sit each evening, but until now, I never quite knew what to picture.




Ryan forged ahead, jumping over rocks and pools of water, ending up atop the largest rocks in the center of the stream. I was slower. My flip-flops were worn and had absolutely no traction. Also, I was stopping a lot, looking around, trying to absorb the scene. This is about the time in the trip that I started shaking my head in disbelief. Granted, there had been lots of head shakes in the car as I stared out of the window, overwhelmed by the beauty of the mountains...but now it was different. This was a place that Ryan had lived. This was a beauty that he was fortunate enough to experience every day.

As I made my way over the water toward the central boulders, I leaned down and gripped a fallen limb to steady myself. I put my weight on the tree, it shifted, apparently disturbing its resident. A large spider zoomed out from the shadows, and though I couldn't see its face or its beady little eyes, I could feel him looking at me. Annoyed.


Ugh. Spiders. The one insect that I would need to learn to deal with if we moved to the mountains of North Carolina. Even after four years of living in a city crawling with roaches I was never able to get used to them... and I think I might be even more terrified of spiders.

I took a dramatic detour to avoid the nasty beast and finally, I joined Ryan on the rocks.