From the managing editor, April 2016
Early summer, a couple of years ago, I arrived in these mountains. Typically the season of fresh starts, spring was to close out my first year here. I ended up traveling much of March, and, upon my return to Asheville, the fullness of April washed over me like our region’s downpours—with sudden, wild fury.
Driving on the highway, I’d blink and squint, sure my eyes were playing tricks on me, unbelieving that the forests could actually be so green in real life. I kept trying to find the filter, to turn down the saturation, like an over-doctored photo. Run-of-the-mill neighborhood walks inspired feverish, poetic musings.
Then again, I strolled those streets with a secret. Like the flora sprouting all around me, a tiny new life grew within me. As my hormones roiled and churned through the early weeks of pregnancy, the surrounding landscape rendered itself ever more Technicolor. It was as if the world was reflecting my emotions back to me—reassuring me that though things would never again be the same, my future was also more vibrant than I could fathom.
When you live in a place so deeply connected to the landscape, as we do here in Southern Appalachia, life tends to shift with the moving of the Earth. The changing of the seasons often mark personal evolutions. Last spring, the trees in my backyard weren’t actually glowing, but my perception of them did so, the scene mirroring my outlook.
Likewise, during the first sleepless weeks after my son was born late last fall, the outside world seemed to be reduced only to light and dark. Some days, my postpartum moods rose and fell with the sun; the intense joys of the daytime gave way to the deep fear of the night. And then, suddenly, the days started stretching out, as they always do. Our new family found a rhythm. Every day seemed to get brighter. There were gray days, too, of course, but we felt hope inside and out: Spring was coming.
When life is hectic or overwhelms us, months can slip by with barely a passing notice. But in those instances when the seasons of our life align with the seasons of the Earth, the resulting clarity can be unparalleled.
It feels appropriate that my son, no longer a newborn, seems to discover more of his surroundings at the same time that the world is opening up—bit by bit, day by day. Soon he won’t sleep through our hikes and drives. The white-noise smartphone app that soothes him will be replaced by birdsong and rushing waters. And he won’t be able to believe how green it all is.
No matter where you find yourself on life’s journey, here’s hoping you take a moment this spring to stop, marvel at its wonder, and feel new again.
— Katie Knorovsky, managing editor