Записки Самарского обывателя

Well, strictly speaking my first impressions should have been called my third ones, as this is my third time in North Carolina. But the previous one was the whole 7 years ago. Memory keeps every moment from the other stays, but this trip is a bit different. The main difference is in its temporary character – only a week. What is a week when it comes to the place you love? Nothing. What is a week when it comes to the place you’ve longed to see again after so much time? A lot.

It hasn’t dawned on me completely yet. I am kind of slow. Random pictures, random music, random features. It is like a patch that is slowly building up or is being sewn into a bigger picture.

You’re gonna miss this

You’re gonna want this back

You’re gonna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast

These were the good times

So take a good look around

You may not know it now

But you’re gonna miss this

Different terrain – mountainous and hilly. Different architecture – typical American country houses. Different weather – very cool in the morning, cold tiles on the front porch. The latter reminds me that I don’t have a sweater or even a long-sleeved shirt here with me. Being exposed to always short-sleeved-permitting climate of New Orleans I have forgotten the temperature realities of western North Carolina.

Even country radio is different here: the song list so far (I’ve been listening for an hour or so) has coincided with that of KWNR 101.9 in NOLA in only a couple of songs. I don’t know whether it is geography affecting my perception, but the feel of the music is more northern, rockish and intellectual. I am not saying that country radio in New Orleans is idiotic – it is just more a mix of partying country and macho-Texan country with the same songs being repeated quite often from a “short” track list.

Sitting here in the kitchen of David’s house, looking out of the window onto trees and hills behind them (you can see the view in the picture), writing and listening to music I am gradually and overwhelmingly become swept away by memories of my Mondamin days. Those two summers in 2001 and 2002 were the best time in my life. So far. It will most probably remain such: with all the youth, waves of new things and impressions, love, experiences, calm, peace, feelings…

So many times I wished I could go back to these days and re-live them, keep re-living them over and over again, sucking in the smells of hemlocks and magnolias, the velvet fogs of the mornings, the orange sunrises of the dining-room and the twilight swims to the Rabbit Island. I will come back, even if for a few hours.

5:50pm EST, Asheville. It is a sunny afternoon after a rainy and gloomy morning. The sun is out there. A UPS truck has just driven by on Wendover Road lit by the sun and graced with the tree shadows. This is such a peaceful place. I don’t mean to say that Cohn House in New Orleans or my apartment in Samara aren’t, but here you find almost perfect peace. Well, the perfect one is in Mondamin.

We’ve been to some shops today: shoes, shirts and pants. The shoe selection this year both in New Orleans and in Asheville is sort of on the disappointing side. We’ve been to TJ Maxx. It stands no comparison to the Marshalls store that unfortunately never reopened in East New Orleans after Katrina.

Driving here is also so much different in terms of the landscape that is left behind and around. In New Orleans if you drive outside St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street with the Quarter you cannot but feel the low swampy terrain. Here in Asheville you drive from atop one hill to atop another with more mountainous slopes around and afar. When it is in rainy weather, you see patches of clouds and fog hooked onto some trees on these slopes. And the roads on Western North Carolina are still the best in the country. Oh, yeah, it feels a bit strange not to see shotguns and these architectural styles I got used to in New Orleans. Here it is typical eastern America.

10:20pm EST, Asheville. We’re back from dinner at David’s parents’ house. They are a great couple living in a great house sitting gorgeously at the slope of a mountain. The house was built in 2002 when there was wood all over that place. Now nature comes back: bears (with cubs), turkey and even peacocks can be seen in the driveway and the backyard. Men went to live on the bear’s territory, but bears didn’t leave their place. It is amazing and a bit scary.

Anyway, nice company, great food and some stories made time fly quickly. I still haven’t hooked up to the Internet. So, it is all kind of writing and laying it aside for when the opportunity comes.