Lucy Tobias

Two Canadian geese flew overhead. That was exciting. I stop to take a shot but I’m not fast enough. All I see are their behinds.

Lowering the camera, I continue walking down from the high meadow, my running shoes making squishing sounds in the wet grass. I’m breathing as instructors tell you to do when you show up at yoga, Pilates or water aerobics – inhale deeply through your nose, expand your abdomen then let your breath out slowly through your mouth, with a long “hahhhhhhhh”

It makes me giddy, like drinking wine. Sipping North Carolina mountain air isn’t the same as drinking your garden-variety house wine. This is rare, fine wine, the kind you need to treat with respect.

Up here, away from the toxic wastes of carbon monoxide from cars, away from busy lives demanding life be faster, quicker, sooner, demanding in a shrill voice making a sound not unlike cats howling on a garden fence, well, up here, away from all that, the air has a different taste and a different sound.

It is clear, sparkling, quiet but robust bordering on bold, containing echo notes of mission bells ringing the liturgical hours, a deep, resonating reminder that the world is bigger than our individual selves.

Inhale, exhale. Ahhhhhhh.

This mountain air, where I’m standing, has an aroma particular to this place – the Hawk & Ivy Bed and Breakfast, a 24-acre holistic country retreat in Barnardsville owned by old friends of mine, Eve and James Davis. They do sometimes wonder if they own the Hawk & Ivy or it owns them. Either way, it is a spiritual and deep relationship.

The mountain air at Hawk & Ivy is infused with the odor of pine trees and wet buttercups, balanced with delicate overtones of rosemary and forget-me-knots growing in Eve’s garden at the bottom of the slope.

I’m alone. Breathing deep. Everyone else is asleep. The sun is rising from behind a ridge to my right. Secretly, I’m pleased. Shangri-La is mine, all mine, at least for a little while. Yep, that’s selfish. Early risers get to be a little selfish.

The pair of Canadian geese honk then begin banking in a huge U turn. Hold the phone! They’re coming back. I fumble with the lens cap and get it off. First rule of picture shooting. Take the lens cap off. It makes a difference.

Walking quickly, I know where they are going. The geese are banking sharply now, gliding on to land on a small pond to my left.

Time for stalker mode, especially since I only have one, short lens and need to be close. I move from tree to tree, trying to blend in, become part of the landscape. I shoot, move on, try not to fall flat on my face as all of this maneuvering is downhill over semi-rough terrain.

This drill also gives the digital camera time to digest all those pixels from the last shot. Nope, this is not one of those zillion frames a second and just-how-much-did-you-pay-for-that-speed cameras. I’m praying the ducks will stay a while so I have time for a good shot.

Swimming slowly, their long black necks held straighter than I ever stood, even though my Mom kept saying, “stand up straight”; they never look right or left, just straight ahead. The geese are looking for something. I don’t know what. Food? A sign their friends have been here? Room at the inn?

To my surprise, later, looking at the pictures big on a computer screen, the geese, as the glide along from one end of the small pond to the other, actually project ripples of water ahead of them, causing the refection of trees in the water to be distorted. The scene is impressionistic, like a Monet painting.

It feels right, standing still, making like a tree, fully focused on the geese. And there’s something else. Time stands still. There is nothing more important than the geese, the pond, the sun rising over the ridge, the now.

Is time standing still because we all turned off our cell phones? Or is it standing still because we left our regular lives to come here?

Maybe is it something about the mountains that embraces us as part of the landscape and we give in easily, not moving, just breathing, wanting to be part of this grandeur.

I don’t know the answer but I do know that I am deeply happy to have stalked the geese, walked to the high meadow, and smelled the early morning mountain air.

People are stirring now. The geese have gone on their way.
Breakfast is served. Eve, a marvelous cook, brings a plate with an omelet, ringed with flowers she just picked from the garden. The breakfast table erupts. Pandemonium as everyone fumbles for their cameras. There are shouts of “Don’t cut the omelet yet” as people get in position, clustering around the plate to take pictures.

Eve brought the outdoors inside, flowers on a plate, celebrating spring, bringing the dance of life to the breakfast table.
After breakfast, our mountain days are up. We reluctantly leave, friends who came for a reunion, going back to the flat lands and our separate lives. I want to bring the mountains back but they won’t fit in the car.

Upon returning home I meet a friend who is getting married in June. I tell her about the geese, the buttercups, and the mountain air. She confesses she’s never seen a mountain.

Never seen a mountain? Say it isn’t so. There should be a rule somewhere saying you can’t get married until you’ve been to the mountains. I tell her she should go, take that husband-to-be with her, that being in the mountains is a life experience that will change perspective. It is humbling, and empowering, all at the same time.

And if she is lucky, Canadian geese will fly by, bank, turn around and land at a nearby pond. The pictures may may or may not turn out but the memories will be hers for a lifetime.

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for further reference go to www.hawkandivy.com with James & Eve Davis as innkeepers.