Field Notes from Appalachia
Hurricane Helene has stirred up ghosts
Welcome! Here are some notes before we get started. I have many new subscribers to Stable Roots who came to me through my post of trusted resources, initiatives, and organizations that need your support in the region affected by Hurricane Helene. That list is updated daily and it will be ongoing in the days/weeks/months/years to come. So please check back often here for ways that you can help. The list will stay pinned to the top of Stable Roots and my Facebook.
Much of the relief organization has been coordinated through Facebook. The platform's lack of word or character limits makes it an effective tool for sharing information. But I've noticed that many public, viral posts about the disaster don’t always have share buttons enabled. If you come across a post you can’t share, try refreshing the page or visiting the author’s profile directly to bypass this glitch.
KEEP SHARING trusted information about Hurricane Helene. Please keep the disaster in front of the people outside this region. Rebuilding hasn’t yet started. The mountains are still thick in rescue and recovery three weeks after the storm. People are still missing. If you can’t contribute in any other way, please help people get the word out. It’s free and information is more valuable than gold.
As for me, I’m a writer and horse farm owner in the foothills of SC about 30 minutes away from the outer rings of the epicenter of destruction. Our community was trashed, but our friends in the mountains lost everything. They need your help to rebuild. If you’ve subscribed to my work, you’ll receive weekly emails from me. Sometimes they will be about relief efforts, sometimes they will be just my writing and thoughts. Feel free to take what you need and leave what doesn’t apply to you. My work is like a potluck and I want you to be satisfied with what you put on your plate. In the coming weeks, I will be focused on sharing the voices of people who are living through this nightmare.
A song of ascents.
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
Psalm 121
The Calm After the Storm
Maybe field notes are a misnomer because I’ve been tied to the farm and house since Helene blew through and changed our region utterly on the morning of Friday, September 27th. No one could be prepared for this inland hurricane because we don’t have a genealogy that has a cultural memory of a storm this large, fast, and catastrophic. Our rivers have never risen this high. We’ve never received this much rainfall. Places that weren’t on a floodplain have been wiped away.
My field notes are from the voices of hundreds of kindred spirits in the southeast. I’ve been too sick to help physically beyond the initial and ongoing needs of my farm, but my already existing network of world changers — some I’ve met in person, others I just know in spirit — went into action as soon as the waters began to recede enough for help to come in.
I was raised by the wisdom contained in the Foxfire series. These stockpiles of narratives formed me as a writer and story collector. If you haven’t heard of the compiled histories in these volumes, here is a description of how this vast collection of Appalachian oral history came about:
In 1966, a struggling English teacher at Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School in Northeast Georgia asked his students what would make school more interesting. They decided to create a magazine, featuring stories gathered from their families and neighbors about the pioneer era of southern Appalachia as well as traditions still thriving in the region.
The students called it “Foxfire” after the glow-in-the-dark fungus found in the local hills. This spark of an idea turned into a phenomenon of education and living history, exploring how our past contributes to who we are and what we can become – how the past illuminates our present and inspires imagination.
We need to collect our stories. We need to gather them, share them, study them, and use them to awaken our ancient, collective memories. This is even more important in times of crisis when stories sustain us and show us the way through.
We’re three weeks out from the time of this storm and places are remaining where people cannot be reached by vehicle or foot. This storm changed the geography of the mountains. Some people will be able to rebuild, and others will not be able to even return to their homes to gather whatever belongings remain.
No matter the circumstance, there is a mass upsurge of people and communities starting over from scratch. Clean-up will take forever. Rebuilding is, for many, a future dream, if even possible at all.
What I can do is use my words to spread information — vetted, trustworthy, reliable information — from the people who are living this nightmare directly. And I will do this indefinitely until the places I love are so secure and stable they are ready to pay back all the love to other people in need.
PLEASE NOTE: I’m seeing a lot of complaints from people around the world who want to help but their direct contributions of clothing, food, livestock feed, etc. are being turned away. This is because there is NOWHERE LEFT TO STORE IT. Buildings and warehouses have been wiped off the planet. Much work is being done by churches, but they don’t have the space or the manpower to sort so many goods. But it doesn’t mean that your aid isn’t needed. It will take a long time to get the donated items to the places they most need to go. Next week, people may need clothes, animals might need feed. I’m saying this because you need to check directly with organizations distributing aid on the ground before clogging already fragile networks with items and traffic that aren’t currently needed.
We all want to help until our feelings are hurt because we’ve been told No. There are mountains of repressed emotions surfacing on both sides of the line: people who feel helpless and want to give are reliving their unhealed trauma indirectly and people who are most in need are learning to ask for what they need — some for the first time in their lives because mountain people are built to not complain — and they’re built to think of their neighbors first.
So if you’re told No and asked to do something differently, go sit somewhere quietly with your guilt and shame and anger and try not to take it out on people who are already hurting. And if you’re in the mountains and you need help, push outside your comfort zone and learn to ask for what you directly need, without shame, without guilt.
Like a clogged dam, these two opposing, invisible, human tendencies — why won’t you take my help? vs. I don’t know how to ask for help — are at the root of the majority of ills we inflict on each other. The tragedy at play in the region destroyed by Hurricane Helene is a great opportunity for us to let go of our old shit and find better, more productive, more loving ways of being. There could be no better examples of this than what is happening in the communities that have lost everything. People are listening and taking care of each other, which might be the reason we’re put on this earth — to learn this — in the first place.
Insult to Injury
The following are some notes on how people are doing at the metro heart of the destruction from a recent supply drop to Asheville by Angie Couts, who is someone deeply rooted in the mountain community, my personal mindset/spiritual mentor, and a being firmly entwined in these hills and rivers:
. . . They’re miles past burned out. So many people have shown up with unorganized miscellaneous clothes thrown in a bag. Whatever bags they were gonna dump at Goodwill. The Green Room has been acting as a distribution center and their walls are so lined with these bags that they couldn’t take our well organized clean clothing donations. But they took most all other supplies. Apparently there is a nomadic group of homeless people who follow natural disasters because of the support they get. And Asheville already had a lot of familiar homeless people. But now the city has been inundated with hundreds more — essentially strangers, and they are beginning to have problems with those people taking donated new items (tents sleeping bags etc) and selling them, and taking resources from the vulnerable people already in the community. Distribution is becoming an issue because of the unorganized donations that require labor they don’t have energy for, and the people who need the stuff the most are still largely inaccessible because still no roads, and it takes time to cut holes through thousands of fallen trees. But water is coming back to downtown block by block as they rebuild their infrastructure. Their spirit is still strong though and there is a fierce determination to both rebuild, and to flush out the problematic city officials who have clearly not filled their leadership roles with consideration to the community as a whole.
I will continue to take donations for the next couple months but will likely divert all funds to either cash donations or gift cards because: 1. Things change daily. Needs change daily. And 2. What i felt above all else was a deep need for agency, autonomy and independence. So many people are making donations not for the people of Western North Carolina (WNC) but for themselves, to relieve their own desperate want to help in the face of incomprehensible misinformation- across the political board, largely by people who may have been to WNC once or twice a few years ago. They are coming with charity expecting glory and that puts a lot of emotional pressure on people whose lives have been turned upside down. I had to reassure [my drop-off contact] that it was safe to say no to things she didn’t need and she was in tears saying no. So it seems to me that the most compassionate way to approach any more donations is through direct cash donations. It will free them. The biggest trauma these people are facing right now is [receiving] insult to injury.
Tips for Donating Goods to Helene Relief
I don’t know the original author of these tips to help exhausted volunteers who are spending their days sorting donated items, but I found them on a Buladean Community Center - Food Pantry’s post.
Send in totes that can be reused and are rodent-safe while being stored the next few months.
Minimize the packaging you’re sending. Ex: remove shoes from shoe boxes, put them in 2.5 gal clear bags and label what size they are. This keeps the boxes from taking up too much space, less trash in NC, and guarantees those shoes will not lose their mate. Remove flashlights from packages and install batteries, etc.
Group everything together with like items in a tote. Ex. all tarps in one spot.
Label your boxes or totes very clearly with what the contents are.
Small Business Directory
I’m working on a resource list that will highlight small businesses in the path of Helene that need your help to open their doors again and to keep them open. This will take a while to compile because whenever I ask people with boots on the ground in the hardest hit places what I should include, they look at me like I’m an idiot because they’re too busy clearing roadways for supplies or delivering water and generators to people who have nothing. They’re living in the moment. What happens tomorrow is a dream.
There’s a lot about this current tragedy that is making us realize that we still have a lot of healing to do after COVID lockdown. The bandaid has been ripped off. And this is doubly true for small business owners because — FEMA does not aid businesses. The only available resource for businesses is SBA loans — just like when Covid struck and that rollout was a complete disaster. Read that again — LOANS. And to be eligible for a loan, you must have cash flow. So, if the doors to your business were shuttered, or blown open, on September 27th when the storm crashed through and you have no income to show because your operations have completely halted — you have no profit to make you eligible for a loan.
And loans have to be repaid — with the profit you’re not making.
We’re approaching the holiday season and gifts or gift certificates sourced from the artisan rich craftspeople of southern Appalachia will pay restoration forward. If you know of any businesses that would like to be included in the list, please send them my way. But if you’re simply wanting to help keep an eye out for that list in your inbox.
YOU ARE NORMAL
A recent post by Jenn Tuura, who is a point of light in the middle of this catastrophe:
It is normal to want to suppress this - to compare it to the responses of others, or to compare our situations, experiences, or losses to those of the others around us - to want to tamp it down, because, by comparison, our experience or loss pales in the face of others.
That’s a normal response. A normal internal narrative.
And a healthy response to that narrative is to extend compassion and care to the folks that have suffered loss or trauma…including ourselves.
In fact, I need to *start* with myself.
Because until I’ve got myself sorted out, I’m not as capable of providing care to others as I could be.
Continuing on in GO Mode is a form of avoidance.
That, too, is normal, but I’d do well to address it before it becomes an unstoppable train.
I need to slow my limbic system.
She later posted:
When I post these snippets of my headspace in this post-Helene hellscape, it's because I am keenly aware of what a trauma response feels like, and how, when left unchecked, it can wreck a Life.
For those of us left standing bewildered, I feel like it's important for me to be honest about what recovery from trauma has felt like for me; the good, the bad, and the ongoing ugly. But also that I believe recovery is worth it. I believe it is worth every ounce of effort and pain.
Mountain Folklore
The folklore of the eastern mountains is rich and ancient and loaded with wisdom that has been passed down since long before European settlers arrived on these shores. As I sit here at my computer writing words that will be transferred by satellite to the world, I am awed and humbled by the realization that we are living through a period of folklore creation following this storm.
So many artists and writers call these hills home. As the shock settles into processing and digesting the immensity of the changed landscape, it’s these people who will lead their communities back into a renewed sense of home. Their words and images will tell the stories of destruction and creation, of loss and renewal, of man’s powerlessness over nature, nature’s regeneration, the human connections that bring hope and solidarity, and the intangible yearning in our souls to find redemption, solace, and belonging.
Whenever I stumble on these magical pieces of inspiration, I will share them with you here.
Day #19
by Tamar Reno, whose wisdom is boundless and who just returned from a trip outside the region of Western North Carolina
I woke up this morning on Bear Creek Farm. The sun is shining and it's a balmy 39 degrees. They say the higher elevations, where some folks are living in tents, where some others don't even have that, could get a dusting of snow by Wednesday.
In these times of misinformation and disinformation, at least the weather is honest. We like to say you know it's cold outside when you go outside and it's cold.
We might not like what we're hearing, but at least nature doesn't lie. So, there's that.
I'm glad to be home. Relieved to be home.
It felt strange to be away. It felt even stranger to be among people living their ordinary lives, far away from the evidence of destruction. Just average folk going about their business.
It's what people do- it's what we all do. Live the life we're living. Respond to what's in front of us. Maybe that's a craft fair in Vermont (where I seriously lost my shit) or maybe it's cadavers in a landslide.
I am not fit company for the rest of the world.
People from other places try to engage me in conversation. Subjects and topics I "normally" find interesting. I stare at them slack jawed. It's not that I don't want to hear about other things. It's that I can't.
I have less bandwidth than a Blue Ridge cellphone.
I'm sure other people in other places are sick of hearing about it. There's not much we can do about that. Right now it's all we've got.
It's a sweet relief to be home. Stark as reality here may be, there's no place like it. There will never be any place like it.
In the meantime there's a red horse and his mares beckoning me from a chilly field...
Sending love and light and the faint scent of snow your way...
To Helene and Back
Is a group I created for equine professionals who are looking for a safe space to process the aftermath of Helene. It’s a quiet space. You won’t find a lot of activity there to clog your feed, but if you work with animals and want a place to stash your stories, the people who have gathered there are some of the fiercest, wisest, most practical/spiritual light workers — as are most who have been called to work with horses.
Love Story
I’ve written every day since the storm, but it’s been hard to sink into the groove of life before and to put words together that aren’t bare-boned action steps. I’ve been too busy living my love story with Christopher as he intuitively picks up the pieces of the farm and of me as I navigate medical mysteries. Chapter 8 will arrive soon, I just don’t know when. In the meantime, for those who are just joining me, here is the nonfiction work in progress that I was posting each week until our wedding at the end of September. It’s as much the story of my farm and of my path in life as it is the joining of two people, but if you want a break from the narrative in your mind right now, you can find previous chapters here:
TEN TIMES I SAID NO TO LOVE:
|| Chapter One || Chapter Two || Chapter Three || Chapter Four || Chapter Five
|| Chapter Six || Chapter Seven ||
I’m going to keep writing and compiling resources. There are some pretty amazing initiatives in the works and I’ve been given the honor of virtually sitting in and watching them build from the ground up. If you hear of any trusted, hands-on organizations, churches, or small businesses in the throes of recovery and clean-up in this hurricane decimated region that need support, please send them my way.
Love,
Kim
So respect what you are doing here Kimberly, holding the truth of what is happening where you are through honouring and communicating the stories of disaster, trauma, community bonding, burnout and repair. There are so many tragedies and so many learnings, your stories carry compassion and wisdom. Thank you 🙏