Process

[There are nights when you just let the sadness wash over you, when you feel it coming on and you do nothing but recognize it for what it is. You greet it. You say hello. You don't fight. You don't rebel. You let it come. Sometimes it's as if an old friend has come to visit. In the past you might have invited it in, told it to a pull up a seat and poured it a drink. You don't do that now. You just acknowledge it's presence. You feel the memories and stain of years as they cascade through you, lifting you up and then pressing down on you with the weight of ephemeral darkness.]

Beginning 1

My family settled in this region in the mid-1700's. My earliest ancestor that I know about was Thomas Gillespie. He was a colonel in the revolutionary army. He was a hero. There is a gap in western North Carolina named after him. Most of my family came from Scotland and England. Some came from Germany. I like to say that side is where the madness came from but who can be sure? My father grew up in a small coal mining camp in the mountains of southern West Virginia. My mother grew up on a farm in the same county. They met in high school after both families had moved to the county seat, a small American town on a flat, rolling plain in the Appalachin mountains. They eloped. My mother was 18 years old. My father was 21. My father lived in North Carolina at the time and worked for his father running a vending machine business. Soon after the marriage my mother moved to North Carolina to be with my father.