I’m writing this account as my notebook is damp from the rains last night. The air hangs heavy in the Blue Ridge Mountains today, everything radiating the energy of the midnight storm. The van is full of wet clothes, wet tent, and wet us. We’re driving across a causeway through the TVA lake toward Chattanooga, still radiating the energy of the past day. We’re tagging off retelling the story of what we just experienced, needing to catch every detail and keep it forever. Last night, Nico, Abi and I passed a notebook back and forth drawing a truck in as much detail as possible; this was like that, each of us digging in our minds, turning over the details one by one, jumping from stone to stone, nearly stepping on each other’s feet but winding together into one continuous strand. Each of our experiences at Guntersville Lake, at the foot of Sand Mountain, were their own threads, twisted in their own way, but part of the same tale. This is mine:
As I came to, bright sun and the clamor of birds, I noticed that every surface of the tent was covered in tiny white worms. Fallen from the huge white pine above us, probably. We were on a small peninsula, marsh on each side. I sat there, paralyzed, turning over the anxieties of the trip: the people I’d met in Athens and Auburn, the people I had yet to meet here; the work I would return to when I got back to school; the unfamiliarity of the landscape around me; the negative balance of my checking account, 7 days into this southerly swing, when I left with $200. Aidan was splayed out next to me, covered in worms, sound asleep. I was always up the earliest. I couldn’t go back to sleep and I couldn’t fix these thoughts. Willfully paralyzed. The untethered thought of running crossed my mind. I pulled on my shirt, shoes, and shorts, looking for purpose. Striding across the bright field, still groggy, I saw the filmmaker we met last night asleep in his tiny tent, and ran past the cabin, a single-level house built by Daniel’s grandfather.
Daniel is one of the founders of the Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center, the reason we were there. Gabriel, our curly-haired, concisely-spoken, leftist friend, who I last saw at a Colombian diner in Minneapolis months before, was a mentor for the SMCEC’s Lamplight summer program, a camp that is led by the youth themselves with support from trusted adults. The camps encourage ownership, agency, and community. Their aim is to bridge the gap between rural and urban, Birmingham and Guntersville. He invited us to the Brick & Barn Conference (brick for Birmingham, Barn for Guntersville) as Aidan and I drove back from Auburn, AL to Athens, GA to reunite with our dear friend Nico and her friend Abi. From his invitation, we had only a vague silhouette of those values, only an impression of what the event would look like. There would be cabins and speakers, there would be food. Community. Cooperation? That, and a strange notion of place from a song called “Sand Mountain Blues.” While he urged us to come to the conference, he told us to listen to this song by Frank Hurricane, a “local legend” who would be playing at the event. The song had a jarring Neil Young-style electric guitar sound, a heavy beat, and bizarre, droning, vocals. It haunted the minivan speakers. We couldn’t really make out the words, but if we could, we would have heard this: Went up on Sand mountain, just to get some peace. Everybody got some shit that needs to be released. If you go up there man, remember just one thing. It’s your job to spread that vibe like a holy mountain spring.
Huh. What were we getting ourselves into? Despite our doubts, we urged Nico and Abi to join us at the conference. We drove through the next afternoon and into the night with only the trust in our friend guiding us towards Sand Mountain.
My vision of Sand Mountain was still hazy the next morning, as I ran down the long gravel driveway that we drove down gingerly the night before. I crossed the road and ran towards the hills, pushing myself upwards, trying to run off the anxiety. To the left was a forest and a stream, and houses to the right; a mix of multi-story suburban homes that I took to be related to the industry we passed driving in, and older, single-story and converted trailer homes. It reminded me of home in Minnesota, the same way the Georgia State Parks did. Familiar patterns of people. Climbing further, I came to a powerline cut. My last run, in NC, I took a corner instead of running up the rocky slope of the easement. This time, I charged up the slope, picking my way through greenbriar and blackberries. At the top, the view revealed rolling green hills and lush tress, a mix of pines and deciduous. Running to the top, I relocated purpose. On the descent I cut my legs on most thorns, but I returned to the road feeling possibility. The next miles were light, and I was intoxicated by the scent of wisteria that grew all around. I found Roal Catchfly growing on the roadside, Silene, that we grew in Minneapolis. I began to know this place.
Back at the cabin, glazed in sweat. Stumbling into the kitchen to get water, I was met by Malika, Daniel’s partner. Tall and smiling, in a dress. Hosting. “Did you go for a run?” Yes! I said something about how beautiful this place is, and seeing the royal catchfly, and did she want to see a picture? Brandishing my sweaty phone, pulled from my shorts pocket. Hastily back out into field. Moving past anxiousness sometimes makes me giddy, but I was still riding the high of my run and didn’t ruminate on what my brain labeled as a botched conversation. I was reminded to slow down, and ask questions. I joined the hands that were setting up chairs in a semicircle, slipping into work with those around me.
The morning was a blur, driving to a campground down the road to pick up guests, new faces appearing at the top of the small hill the cabin rested on. A bunch of red-headed kids beelining it to the marsh. Tentatively mixing as we got breakfast inside the cabin and continued to help set up, peering at the event schedule. Daniel called for everyone to congregate outside by the chairs, and I could see the makeup of the crowd.
Nico, Abi, and I were the youngest, except for the gaggle of kids who apparently belonged to the two read-haired parents. Three Black women, two dressed in formal clothes, a pantsuit and a dress, and one with glasses wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, and a sideways blue hat. About 5 white guys in various flavors of hipster; one younger guy who looked like someone I went to high school with. A middle-aged white woman in a flowing, brightly flowered dress. A skinny Asian guy with long hair, maybe 40s or 50s, who I met when I got my nametag from the table. He was welcoming guests with Donna, Daniel’s Aunt, the elder of the event. She asked me my name and promised that she would try to remember it. Everyone surrounding her showed so much care.
Daniel rang a bell to start the event, and I headed inside to the sunroom. The first speaker was a dark haired, blue-eyed guy, bearded and handsome, with a strange intensity. Carlos. He was a urban consultant working in New Mexico. He presented on affordable housing, specifically how it could be achieved with legislative and development practices under capitalism. I thought that the conference would be full of capitalist critique, which it was, but all the topics and suggestions were pragmatic and focused on achieving actionable change. He spoke about the factors that can be controlled like housing supply and land use regulations, and the housing exclusion that is driving higher earners to buy low-quality homes, raising prices and displacing lower-income families downstream. The ideas and regulations that push developers towards sprawl, resulting in higher infrastructure maintenance costs and lower housing supply. Speaking to him afterwards, he had a caged animal quality – passionate about his work, trying to communicate to administrators and legislators that they need to rebuild the system. Daniel rang the bell, and I went outside.
I sat in the semicircle of chairs that we placed under the shade of an oak. Daniel introduced Dorothy George, whose “friends call me Dot.” She added that we were all friends. She is the Small Business Relationship Coordinator for the city of Birmingham, a professional in bringing people to the table. Her relaxed presence, smiling, with her hat tipped to the side, welcomed us into her story. When she was a teacher, she experienced a student acting up in class on the regular. However, she realized that he was taking care of his siblings and skipping breakfast. She brought him breakfast. It didn’t solve the problem entirely, but he knew that she knew where he was at, and it was easier for them to communicate. Dot proposed this as an analogy for the disconnect between small businesses and governments. Often, she observed, the stakeholders in economic development are not at the table, and programming doesn’t serve them. “What if programming responds to the specific needs of communities?” she asked. “How does programming build relationships?” Her job is rebuilding trust and bringing people to the table. She sees her working as working against forces that isolate communities, like the shifting of regulatory responsibilities from city to state, and decisions made behind closed doors. “As a queer Black woman,” she understands marginalization in these spaces “even though I’m wearing Gucci loafers.” She uses her power to lift people up. Her openness and knowledge encouraged us as an audience to ask hard questions all generally relating to mending broken trust, and the current situation of community we are in. After each one, she laughed: " She ended, “thank you, I’m single!”
Back inside for the final talk. This one was by Adam Keller, a small, good-natured looking guy. Adam was fired from his job as a history teacher for being a union leader. He was running our of money to support his family when he found work with a nonprofit focused on fighting poverty through legislation in northern AL. He also works as a stagehand and a leader of the stagehand’s union. He shared firsthand experiences and other accounts of anti-union activity, ending with a graph: Each of these people, adults each making their way in the world on their own unique path, answered questions for me about how I could make a difference. They are all people who worked normal jobs and let their values and personalities lead them into the roles they’re in now. They make change in concrete ways, through actions based on their positionality. They found and built community with their neighbors.
Turning this over in my head, I made my way inside to grab lunch. Donna was there, being helped by the guy that looked like someone from my hometown. He wore a black Call of Duty t-shirt and baggy jeans, and black boots, and helped Donne with tenderness as she served herself tacos. Her hands were thin and wrinkled and she moved slowly and carefully. She seemed aware of this, and masked her discomfort with being helped with humor and observations about the task at hand, conversation, and questions. I was in line behind her, giving her space. “Where are the napkins?” she asked. I’d seen them moments before so I reached into the shelf and grabbed some, handing them to her. I felt a little exasperated by her slowness but that feeling dissipated as soon as I handed the napkins over. My grandma is getting older, and this felt just like helping her. I was closer to all the people her who cared for Donna, united in purpose.
Back outside, I wandered around with my plate. I was hesitant to sit anywhere, but Carlos left his seat at a table and offered it to me. I joined William, a blacksmith trying to start a wild garden in his backyard, and
We walked a ways out the end of the peninsula. The roots of the trees were exposed by the tide, and everything was green. The wind whipped through our hair. It was good to come back together to explore this place. I had seen from hill to water that day.
We returned from the peninsula to rakes, shovels, and mattocks. People were moving rocks and logs, forming a path from the top of the hill to the firepit at the bottom, following the oak tree crown and the gentle slope. Potted perennials were being planted, roots broken up, leaf mold mixed into soil in the holes. Everyone was doing something. As a gardener and a native plant lover and a designer, I was ecstatic. I wanted to dive in to help, to use my knowledge. I jumped around, trying to find spare tools. Asking people about the plants involved, trying to talk about the Royal Catchfly. I popped some phlox in the ground, dug some recesses to put the logs in for retaining steps in the path. I kept handing off my tools to people who had other jobs to do.
The bell rang, once again. Back to center, the chairs under the oak. I gathered with Aidan, Nico and Abi to talk about what we would do next. We had planned to go to thrift store further north, to look through unclaimed baggage from airports. We were at a threshold: this place and these people, or a new place with with our core group. The window was closing as Daniel called for people to gather. After spending hours together that week, it was bizarre to have been apart for most of the day. We stood in a circle, pulled in both directions. Finally, someone suggested that we stay. I felt relieved, since the garden still needed work. I think we were all relieved, our souls tethered to the peninsula and the cabin and the people here. Deciding to stay felt right. This was where we were meant to be.
We sat down in the folding chairs. Daniel asked us to turn to our neighbors. I looked at Abi, who I’d met only two days before, who was wearing my running hat as I wore Nico’s cap and Aidan wore her hat and Nico wore Aidan’s. I realized how close we’d become, the four of us a unit in the other’s eyes. We both turned to David, with the long, dark hair from the welcome table that morning. “What would you do if you knew 10 other people would do it with you?” Daniel asked. I said “jump in the lake,” Abi said “buy a house,” David said “start a worker co-op.” “I’ve already done that,” he added. Other groups corroborated my lake idea, and Abi’s house idea. Making big investments, the power of a collective. Gerrel Jones, a newcomer of the afternoon, told us about 230 acres he has his eye on to start a cooperative community. Keyone said she would buy land and try to make it as valuable as possible to sell. Pragmatic ideas; to a certain extent, we can only be as idealistic as those that keep us down.
We then split into groups based on geography. I was in a group with visitors, including Abi and Nico. The question: “What should we be talking to our neighbors about?” Casey from Brooklyn, with sincere eyes and a mustache and grey in his dark hair, answered money. Dollars and cents. How are you doing, financially? The first step of labor organizing is understanding how wages compare. The taboos that prevent us from talking about money might be keeping us all down. Abi was next, and talked about spaces where connection itself occurs. How can we talk to our neighbors if we are always in our own homes, in our own cars? We need to be together in place. Sarah, a Doctor and mother of all the children, from Asheville. “What do you need?” Hurricane Helene caused her community to start asking each other hard questions. In the aftermath of the disaster, her neighbors were able to keep each other fed, take care of each other’s children, transport each other. Their attitude was that today, we can fix this for this person. Breaking down larger issues into relational connections. Nico next, talking about contacting each other. Offering contact info. We first identified the fears that come with connection. When you open up, what might you find?
Stephen, who looked like he could be from back home, was from Tennessee. He talked about loose bullets in the walls of his home. His neighbors who turned out to be Nazis. He’d seen what you might find. But he had experienced helping his neighbors, without an obligation to agree with them. Being a good neighbor was close to survival for him where he was. For him, a neighbor was like family: unconditional. It is a risk to communicate across differences, but it can be done safely. I admire his courage.
I volunteered to take notes and share our answers out. I stood, still covered with sweat from the garden, nervous, but full of trust and certainty from those around me. I rehashed what we discussed, and did a worse job than when I repeated people’s ideas back to them as we talked. But it was done. I felt like I’d finally given something to this group, to this place. Daniel touched on our discussion of social norms inhibiting connection. He was reminded of Donna, and asked her to speak. Donna, in her gentle, ancient, way, told us about how she learned the names of everyone in her apartment building. She knocked on their doors, and asked them. Most of them were delighted. To practice, she would go to the mailroom and hand-deliver mail to each resident. The only time she was ever yelled at was when a man was naked in the shower. He told her to stop doing that. But for the most part, people were grateful. Daniel asked us if we thought any of us could do that. “You couldn’t,” he said, “unless you’re Donna who is quite possibly the sweetest person in the entire world.” (Later on, Nico told us that Donna took herself to the doctor because she feels happy all the time and thought she should feel sad. She tried being sad for 15 minutes, and declared that “it was fine.”) At that point, it was a decision. What Donna had learned in her life was that to be happy is a choice, and that people made her happy. That’s why she was here – to live with those around her. “Oh” Daniel remembered. “I have the pleasure to introduce…” He gestured to the back of the crowd.
Standing behind the crowd was a man built like an oak tree. He had long red hair an a red beard, and a tiny pair of sports sunglasses on his head. He wore a black shirt with an incomprehensible colored graphic and knee-length plaid shorts that were a shade of peach almost his skin tone. Bright orange Brooks on his feet. Arms folded. A kind, contented smile. “Thanks Big Daniel!” he said. I instantly recognized that Frank Hurricane was here. Kevin, a guy from Minnesota who was in charge of the food, called that it was time for dinner.
In the golden light, I walked back into the garden. The only other person there was a woman in green overalls, who had been coordinating the planting earlier. I introduced myself, and she said her name was Sarah and that she grew all the plants. I asked about the beautyberry, and we spoke about native plants and their uses. I spent my time carefully picking from a pile of stones (that purportedly used to be a ferryhouse of some kind) to build a drainage channel for the path. We spread dark mulch across the hill. The fruits of our labor were so visible: in just 3 hours, we transformed the hillside into a landscape of care. After working in the dust I remembered dinner. I piled potatoes and smoked meatloaf onto my plate. Kevin had been talking about this meatloaf all day. It was delicious.
I went back to the tent to change, and got to catch up with the other three. Each of them had something to say about Frank Hurricane. While I was working in the garden, he had been wandering around the peninsula, becoming a part of the scenery. Aidan said hello and was returned a kind “wassup playa?” Nico had seen him hanging out by the hammocks in the trees, and he commented on this “holy place.” He then climbed into Abi’s hammock, cracked open a beer pulled from his shorts, unfurled some crumpled pages, and began to hum to himself as he reclined. I could see him over there, leg dangling.
We got sent into town to buy beer and glowsticks, and experienced the gas station culture. They were well stocked. We walked away with popsicles and a jar of pickled eggs that came highly recommended. It was nice to be all together in the car again, on a mission. Leaving our group reminded us that we were anonymous travelers in this place, but this outing we felt more of a push to get to know people. We talked to the clerks, waved to other customers. I drove and found the turn by heart, recognizing it from my morning run despite the darkness that had descended. We were welcomed back by Julia, the most enthusiastic of the organizers, who had dispatched us to begin with. The space had transformed, the fire crackling, with colored string lights glowing. The pack of an old pickup turned into a stage, covered with lamps and wooden crates.
We all settled down on a bench that was built by Lamplight campers, side by side. Despite having met most of these people today, I felt comfortable in the space. Kevin and Stephen sat together, Donna next to Carlos. Next to them the filmmaker and his friend the blacksmith, who was William’s mentor. Casey was on stage, playing mandolin and singing folk songs in English and Gaelic. He switched to guitar for the last rousing tune and was applauded off stage.
Frank Hurricane rose onto the hay bale in the back of the flatbed. “Thank you all for having me in this spiritual place. This is a mystic spot,” he said sincerely. “Thank you big Daniel for having me out. It’s been mystic to meet all of you shrimps, you guys are the best.” He continued, “I have to give a shoutout to holy Donna, such a mystic shrimp!” Applause. The smoke blew towards his face, but he closed his eyes, and poised his hand above the strings of his guitar.
The first strum was the beginning of a series of stories and song unlike any I have ever heard. Frank’s fingers plucked shimmering notes from the guitar. Went up on sand mountain, just the other day. Saw the big king rattlesnake sittin on display. Gave a little thanks, man, spread a little love. With those holy sunrays flowing from above. Kevin hooted, Donna clapped along, we all swayed together. Hey friend, how ya doing? I know, your brain’s been a brewin… singing directly to me. Telling stories about getting a DUI on a bike in Athens (where Abi lives) because a police officer stopped him for running a stop sign (we noticed that the police presence was really high in Athens, creating boundaries between race and class, college and town, more overt but ultimate similarly relevant compared to Ithcaca), writing a song in jail, and then getting acquitted because the public defendants all love his music. You don’t really have to be, fascist or PC, because everyone is just trying to be free. Life is spiritual. The simple and bizarre situations he creates. He makes community around him through humor, storytelling, and illuminating the magic of the everyday. Going up the trail, and setting sail, you’re moving forwards. Wonder what’s around the hill, just wait until you’re cruisin over. Dustin off that old rug, potato bug, you holy homie. On a journey. You’ve been holy. The anxieties, the natural world, and the people you meet, all spiritual, mystic, holy, and sometimes off the chain. I gave my Lyft driver one half of a $5 bill. He’ll get the other half when I come back out, I’m addicted to thrills. Oh yeah. I’m in a hainted high rise, ooh I’m chillin with a mystic Granny, up in jersey, them bedbugs they eatin me alive. Some words were spoken by some incestuous rapper from Hoboken. Seemingly mundane adventures embellished with a hilariously unique vocabulary, but spoken so sincerely. Why it worked is because you could feel that Frank Hurricane had all these feelings, and valued all of these moments. Them beautiful eyes set a path for the day. For me to walk down, inside my mind. I’m going down to the gap and the holy spring. Gonna cleanse my soul in a natural way. Hey little frog, little jumpin buddy hey. Hey little frog little jumping friend.
We were all shimmering from the music. Kevin started playing songs from the speaker, some familiar, some completely new. We made our way to the dancefloor that the campers had set up, swaying in the moonlight, energetically dancing together. I remembered swing dancing, and danced with Abi. A storm had brought down a tree, and I sat on it with Gabriel, catching up. One by one, our friends joined us, hoisting themselves onto the trunk and helping each other. Carlos, who had been wandering around with a polaroid, came over and snapped a photo of us, all lined up. Aidan started chatting him up, getting him to tell his story. We found a giant slug on the log, joining us.
I returned to the tent and pulled on some layers, finding Aidan there among the worms. Neither of us could believe what just happened to us. Frank Hurricane was a force of nature. We needed to speak to him. We emerged and found Nico and Abi beat us to it. His speech was as perfectly composed as his music, melodic in his accumulated dialect. He started telling us a story about a secret cliff in TN where he met two “elderly shrimps,” one of whom fell off the cliff and survived. About Cornbread Steve, his friend who flirted with the girl from north country in the 60s and made Bob Dylan mad. When he was living in a tiny but super high-ceilinged $200 apartment under the stairs of a frathouse in Boston, and one of the brothers complained about him sitting on the porch telling people to “stay high” so he called him a shrimp. He told us about hiking the Appalachian Trail, doing 11 miles to the “psychedelic hostel” in 2hrs, alone for 5hrs in the “psychedelic hostel.” His friends named him Manimal. I told him about my friend Davy, who wants to become one of several to ever complete a 7,000 mile backpacking route out west. He gave me his contact into.
We returned to a bench in front of the stage and sat, drawing the truck and everything on it in as much detail as we could. Meditating on the sight before us. Passing the notebook back and forth. It felt good to show that much concern and attention to something, recognizing every part of it. Aristotelian, breaking something down to its elements. A dialectic process. When I first started drawing, it felt like there was an infinite amount of detail possible. But as we handed it back and forth, the vision of what elements were missing became clear to everyone. We arrived at the solutions together, came to a consensus.
A tornado watch buzzed on our phones, and Frank said he would swim into the tornado. Everyone at, looking at radars and up to the sky. Daniel asked that we all help move everything inside. We packed everything up in 20 minutes with many hands. It wasn’t yet raining, so the four of us headed back to the tent. We sat in the darkness, Abi and Nico commenting on the worms that had also fallen on their hammocks, deliberating if we should sleep in the cabin. Gabriel came over, and joined in, laying out all the options for us. As he spoke, the rain started and began to pick up rapidly behind him. Daniel appeared, and suggested that we come inside, like, right now.
We shoved everything into our bags. My stuff was packed so compactly that I was having trouble putting it all away. The tent was lifted over me by Gabriel and Aidan, just as the rain was pouring harder than I’ve ever experienced. I grabbed anything around me in my arms and started running to the cabin. I dropped at least three things in the field as I ran. The holy wind was blowin. We made it to the cabin, soaking wet. Everyone was in a similar state. The tent was propped up in the living room. We were handed towels, dried ourselves off, put on dry clothes. Set out our sleeping bags on the carpet.
Gabriel motioned for us to follow him. We entered a room with everyone from the conference, rattled but chatting together. The conversation shifted to a martial art that Aidan’s mom practices. Aidan started talking about meditation. The filmmaker spoke up, asking if we wanted him to lead a meditation. We all agreed. We all sat together, in silence, eyes closed. He led us through a reflection on the day, and decompression from this moment. The rain fell on the roof. We got some more meatloaf, and Kevin revealed that the only reason he talked about it all day was because he was nervous that people wouldn’t like it but it was the most Alabama food he could think of. We laid down on the floor and closed our eyes.
The next morning, Frank Hurricane was nowhere to be seen. I vaguely remembered him telling us he was going to swim into a tornado. We shoved everything wet into the trunk of the van, and packed up our bags to leave, wearing each other’s sweaters. We offered to take all the trash from the conference with us when we left, since the garbage service in town wasn’t reliable. Daniel thanked us profusely.
~ I had to stop writing because we arrived at a beautiful rest area on an island in the lake. I got out and stretched, marveling at the lake. Half the clothes I wore were not mine, I was unshowered, and my face was covered in sparse whiskers. I felt like a new person. The people I met, of all generations, had caused me to grow. My mind was full of purpose, inspired by everyone we’d met. We were no longer just driving through the mountains; rather, we were each on our own spiritual journey through the world, ready to be shaped and shape those people and places along the way. There was no way to know where our paths will lead, but we can honor the present as a song being sung, our neighbors as the characters.
The experience of this story as well as the story itself are a testament to presence and close attention. At the beginning of the semester, I didn’t think I was capable of writing long prose. Writing was something that I felt dedicated to, but almost dreaded because it felt like I was trying to squeeze something out of my brain that simply wasn’t there. Throughout the course, I’ve become more comfortable with writing as a practice. Writing with paper and pencil has helped tremendously. Learning to write as a form of processing has been important, and I will be taking this skill with me.
Without writing this account, I don’t think I would have been able to understand the ideas that formed so clearly. I feel that this was a formative experience for me, and I think writing about it is what made it so impactful.