Asheville to Chapel Hill

When we are at home, I cannot sleep more than about seven hours at the most. But somehow on this trip, I am waking up later and later. It can't only be the steady march through the time changes. At David and Bernice's house, the curtains are so effective that it was dark as night when we finally checked the clock. It was 8:30!  By this time, the markets would have been open for half an hour already. I was shocked. Being on vacation has reminded me how to sleep late.

We had delicious gluten-free pancakes, expertly made by Dave. This whole trip, we have been on the receiving end of endless generosity. Of course, we would make pancakes for a guest too, but day after day, week after week, people have been feeding us, buying our dinners, giving us their time. I don't think we have ever planned a trip where the visits were so brief and so intensively close together (except for when we go to Boston) but we have been so warmly welcomed everywhere we go. We have not had one visit that felt lukewarm. We have had serious, fast-paced, wide-ranging conversations at each stop. Many of the same themes and topics, but each time with a different set of people who have lived different lives, but who at some time have overlapped with our lives for enough time that we still know each other well. I still think of it as a kaleidoscope of This Is Your Life, where we dip into a different place and time that we shared with someone and then we just start catching up. As Adria said back in Santa Fe, Jon has been "positively loquacious."

In the next blog post, I am certain there will be a series of summaries, because that is the Groisser tradition. But while I am thinking of it, this is a list of the sorts of things we have talked about in the last three weeks:

our children
their children
my mother
grandchildren
my siblings
their family members
farm succession plans
politics and current events
Israel and the war
Jon's work
their work
the farm, past and present
retirement
thoughts on what comes next in life
passions and projects

Interestingly, we have not spent a lot of time on health issues, although there is always some catching up to do. But just about everyone we have visited has been a senior citizen of some age and everyone is in reasonably good health, or is managing whatever is going on. 

Even though it was raining a little bit, we went to the tailgate market (which we would call a farmers market, but that name means something different in Asheville: a farmers market is where large wholesale truckloads get distributed to commercial customers). Asheville has a lot of small farmers and artisans and this market looked very familiar as a mid-winter destination. Meat, eggs, some produce (but not as much variety as we bring to Falls Church in February, to my surprise), herbs and cultures, bread. Tons of customers for not very many vendors. In the summer, this market is three times as big. Every single vendor uses a pop-up tent, most of them are 10x10. Even in this counter-cultural place, our farm would stick out with our tarp frames and tables.

We stopped for only our second picnic table lunch on this trip. By now, we have eaten just about every sort of restaurant/take-out meal we want and eating from our supplies, while not exciting, felt just fine. It was about 60 degrees and I have been looking longingly at picnic tables at every rest area.

We got to Pittsboro pretty much on time, a little bit late because we missed an exit while we were on the family zoom call. The news from Israel is that Liana crawled yesterday for the first time, and that Mika has been grumpy for a few days after being sick and at home. When Benjamin asked Mika why she has been so grumpy with her parents, she corrected him, "I am grumpy with Liana." She continues to be one self-aware and articulate two-year-old. Benjamin's current analysis of the situation in Israel is that this war is speeding up/compressing the events that were inevitably unfolding with the current government and with the historical response to the unfinished questions of existence/co-existence. He might not have said it exactly like that, but that is my one sentence summary.

John and Laurie have lived in their house, on their farm that they created, for about 35 years, I think. Laurie has been the primary farmer and John has been the tractor driver with an ongoing job as an antri-trust lawyer. Like the John we visited in Nashville, this John has been working on local issues (including climate change) the whole time he has been in North Carolina. This John, a friend of my parents from Oberlin, is now 86 and says it is time for his face to stop being on Zoom at all these meetings because it is time for younger folks to step up and take a turn at leadership. Laurie has cut her farming season down to focusing on growing seedlings for gardeners in spring and fall, plus the necessary tomato season. She has been going to the Carrboro Farmers Market (a very rules-based market that honors seniority) for so long that she now has managed to adjust her season down to just 17 weeks of selling, which is the minimum number of weeks to keep your eligibility. We only had a couple of hours to spend over tea and pumpkin bread, but we could have talked for much longer. John was one of the original purchasers of the 400 acres in Wheatland that have become so important to all of us. We need to go back and hear more stories. In his spare time, he plays a lot of tennis and piano -- with a special interest in 20th century composers. 

Our next visit was with Ed and Beth in Durham. They just had a house built for their retirement years because they couldn't find anything they wanted to buy and they wanted to be in Durham. We got there just as they were arriving from Pittsburgh with a carload of stuff (they are in the process of moving). It was pouring down rain and we helped them move the most important stuff inside before having a grand tour of their brand new house. We learned what kinds of new blinds we need to buy to replace all the ones that are worn out in our 24 year old house. We walked to dinner at a cool taco place. They don't live in the city, exactly, they live on a street that is being developed right now -- there were workers still scrambling in the dark and the rain to finish something because these houses are going up fast. But they live within walking distance of plenty of interesting restaurants. Ed and Jon were roommates in college and we have seen him at least once a year for the last 40 years so they can tal02k, fast and furious, without a lot of need for backstory. We will go back to see them sooner than later, I am sure.

And then on to Chapel Hill to see Vicki who used to be a neighbor in Great Falls, the mother of one of Benjamin's good friends in elementary and middle school, a lady I have always liked but never known very well. We visited her once a long time ago and learned how comfortable she is with people like us just dropping by. Her husband died about three years ago and one of their three kids moved in with her, which has been good for both of them. She lives in another one of these houses that are unimaginably large and fancy. I haven't counted the chairs, but I bet the number is closer to the house in Oak Park than any other.