Writers Trip
They say you should be writing or doing something worth writing about, well this week I have been doing something worth writing about. For the first time in many years my husband and I went somewhere for fun. We found a good home for the chickens, rooster, and ducks, packed off the dog to my brother, and went somewhere special to visit. I am on a short break from work so this was the perfect time. ( you have to make money to live) So we went to Eastern Kentucky. We have friends who bought 70 acres and we were excited to catch up and visit.
A couple of things about Eastern Kentucky, poverty is not dressed up. These are poor people who have been poor, with very little help, for generations. The Appalachian Mountain folks don’t even know how poor they are, they just do their thing, live their lives, and make some great music. The roads are an adventure, the land while beautiful is full of brambles, inhospitable, and exhausting. The rich people of that region live side by side with the poorest people, or else they leave. There is no division of our mountains and your mountains, or one side of the tracks and the other. There is no escape from the outside view of poverty, and it doesn’t hide. The poorest have no electricity, no plumbing, and hunt and gather their food. Their houses are built with scrap wood, without building codes or the benefit of inspections. It makes for cheap housing, but I bet they are kept clean and tidy.
Everyone we met was nice, friendly, helpful, and kind. We were able to visit with our friends, catch up on news, share stories, and see a part of the world I had not seen much of before. It was an excellent first trip for us after so many years of care taking for others.
As a writer, I know that everything I see, experience, and feel informs my writing so we try to feed that regularly. This next year is going to be crazy with moving, estate sales, making money to survive, and life adventures. I hope I can do some writing as well. But no matter what, I am going to get back into blogging for my website and connecting with readers about my stories.
Read to a happy place and see you next time.
