Not too bad, huh? This morning I woke up at 6:00 a.m. at the Gideon Ridge Inn in Blowing Rock, NC. I’m here to speak at the library at Appalachian State University this afternoon at 3:00 p.m. If you live nearby and read this in time, please come say hello.
I don’t sleep very well when I travel, but I like getting up early without an alarm, and that’s always easy for me to do in hotels (or gorgeous inns, as is the case this morning). I always miss my family and my bed and my routine. But I always try to make a routine whenever I travel, even if I’m just staying for one night. I always unpack my clothes into drawers and put my luggage in the closet. I can’t stand living out of a suitcase. I always iron my “work” clothes and hang them up. I always unplug the room’s alarm clock and plug in my white noise machine. I always keep my shaving kit on the bathroom counter. I always find a good place to work in the room, preferably not sitting on the bed, leaned against the headboard with my laptop on my, well, lap. I like a desk if I can get one. I always unload the books I’ve brought with me so I can see what I’ve got to choose from. I always bring 5-6 books, not because I’ll read all of them (or even complete one of them), but because I’m terrified of being somewhere without a bookstore where I can’t find something to suit me. (Right now I’m a little more than halfway through Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.). Finally, I always stream WHQR (Wilmington NC’s public radio station) on my computer while I’m settling in.
I was able to hammer out some good work at the desk this morning, despite having a wonderful breakfast here at the inn and three cups of coffee, and despite there being a water main break here in Blowing Rock. There is literally no water running anywhere in town. I’m supposed to be at the library for a donor luncheon in about an hour and a half, so I’m trying to decide if I want to rinse off my bedhead with the drinking water I brought with me or take one of the App State deans up on her offer to let me shower at her house. In the meantime, I’ll finish my thoughts here.
Aside from my work as a novelist, I also write for magazines and other media. I was recently named the Books Editor for The Assembly, which is a brilliant online news magazine that tracks the uses and abuses of power in North Carolina politics and culture. My job is to write a monthly column in which I review a new book about North Carolina or an old book that speaks to the contemporary moment. This month I’m working on a review of Brent Martin’s new book George Masa’s Wild Vision: A Japanese Immigrant Imagines Western North Carolina.
I’ve long been aware of Masa and his work and his role in protecting the Smokies and the formation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but it wasn’t until I read Martin’s book that I understood how fully Masa’s creative life was intertwined with his role as a citizen and conservationist. The three - his creative life, his social life, and his conservation efforts - were literally intertwined in ways that were absolutely indistinguishable from one another. He was a genius photographer (Ansel Adams complained that the Smokies were “devilishly hard” to photograph, and soon gave up), but Masa was also a tireless advocate for protecting the wildest spaces in the southern Appalachians, as well as recording the many watersheds, Cherokee place names, and various topographies in what would become the park. He was a genius. I wish more of us knew about him. I wish more of us could live like him, intertwining the things that mean the most to us in a daily effort to live in the work. Onward.