Unpaved roads

We follow a long, hot highway from New Mexico to North Carolina. The paved road shimmers, taking us from mesa, dirt road, and desert into the moist, green South. I am a Southerner, ready to re-embrace my heritage of slow life, rain, and loamy soil.

For eighteen years remembering the sweet smell of earth, I longed to be in the woods. We cross the Mississippi River for the last time, arriving in the Pigeon River Gorge, unrolling the window for the sound of water over boulders, seeing the rising mists of North Carolina.

Now residing in Black Mountain, N.C., we enjoy the gift of fragrant forest and the sound of water flowing. Our land is located at the end of a dirt lane. To get to our house, we drive beneath a canopy of rhododendron, over two, single-lane bridges, and through a sward of green, then up the mountainside where we can see the peaks of the Swannanoa Mountains. 

The place produces a sense of remote tranquility, but first we must bump along a rutted road. Our path is scooped with pot holes and dips, places we navigate by heart, a terrain that does not help the suspension system of our car. 

I love it. 

Once in a while, usually during an election year, the Department of Transportation will grade our road. This new sensation, moving over an even surface, lasts until the rains come and rearrange the topography, restoring the road to its unruly state.  

Once the D.O.T. offered to pave the little dirt road. Our small community unanimously agreed to forego this generous offer, choosing instead to keep our bumpy byway. The idea of     pavement seemed to us like a threat rather than an opportunity. After all, we choose this back way home. We want the opposite of fast and convenient. A hard surface means hushing the ground. 

When you live on a dirt road, you are automatically invited to slow down and let the forest smells permeate your car. There’s a big rut just before the second bridge. It forces us to stop and   listen to the stream that runs through our property, to see the places where sunlight hits water, glints back.  

Wild creatures cross our paths in this place: a lynx, deer, wild turkeys, and of course, the ubiquitous bears. One evening I was driving slowly enough to have cubs and a mother saunter in front of my car. If I’d been speeding along, I might have missed the opportunity to see this family at play, unconcerned by my presence. My four-wheeled intrusion might have even hit them.

When it snows heavily, we are given a great gift. No one can come up or down our road. Road graders clear the main roads, but ours remains hidden under a blanket of white. It is a time of deep silence and crisp light. Once when we were set to leave on an airplane trip in winter, a heavy snowfall threatened our plans. We’d parked our car at the bottom of the property the previous night, knowing we might have a problem getting out. Faced with the challenge of getting down the hill, we strapped on our skis and slid down, leaving the skis parked against our stone wall and getting to the airport in time to catch our plane. An innovative friend once slid down the hill on a cookie sheet to get to a concert. 

Living on dirt roads makes a person more creative. We don’t need to drive to another location for diversion.  We simply settle in, appreciate the earth breathing, listen and behold.