Homecoming 10/6/2024

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

By the time this publishes I will be in my happy place. I had planned all along to talk a bit about my beloved mountains when planning what to write.  However, I know this is a somewhat exhausted topic, while not for me as I would happily write about this as often as the opportunity presented itself, I am assuming that you the reader, if you do not share my adoration for the Appalachians, might get a bit weary of hearing about them from me. In considering this, I attempted to think of a way I could talk about my place without saying to you the same things I have always said. Since there are certain things I just love to talk about, autumn and the mountains being two of them, I try my best to find some new angle to give new life to previously visited subject matter. Luckily, I stumbled upon just such a new viewpoint (as I often do) while taking my daughter to school.

This week is Homecoming week at my daughter’s school and since she attends the same school that I did, I suppose it is a bit more significant. Now, for some reason they have to dress up in different themes each day of this week. I cannot say that I remember doing this when I was in school but that was eons ago.  I was thinking of my class in school and of times I’ve gone back to events like reunions or even just to watch football games.  There is that nostalgia. It’s strange in a way because everything is very familiar, but then also different. It is an odd mixture of comfort and discomfort all at once. I suppose we all tend to think about those good memories, but there is no going back and even if there were we are changed people. In the context of a little rural school in the middle of nowhere Alabama, Homecoming is just a walk down memory lane; smiling at the good times and seeing how far you’ve come. It is also apparently, multiple toilet-papered houses thrown into the mix if my morning drive to school is any indication.

When I travel to the mountains in the coming days (again, I am already there when this publishes), it will be a Homecoming that is in fact so poignant that it is difficult to explain.  I have never lived in those mountains. I have never, in the most literal sense of the word, been able to call them home.  So why, you may ask, would going somewhere that has never been my home, feel like going home?  Well, I have some theories and since you asked, I will share.  You see, these mountains are, quite literally, in my blood. My mother was born and raised in the foothills of this range. For her, the endearment makes perfect sense. So, the fact that her blood courses through my veins seems to have had an impact in this. I went to family gatherings in those hills. I celebrated holidays in those valleys nestled between mountains hearing the way they spoke and the traditions they kept.  Those people were my family and all the very “family things” that I did often happened there and, though perhaps not as frequently, still do.

And if I dare to go even further back, which I have done as tracing my more distant ancestry is an absolutely fascinating and terribly addictive interest of mine, I find a heavy influence of Scotch-Irish settlers.  This has also led to my research which tells me these mountains were heavily settled by such people because, yes, you guessed it, it reminded them of home.  Which if you want to be scientific about it, when the continents were all one big kerfuffle of land the range of mountains that are the Appalachians are part of the very same range that makes the Highlands of Scotland and the like. So, it felt like home to them because it was, at least in part.  They brought with them their culture and the ways of the mountain peoples are heavily influenced by it. So, these truly are my people. I can say as much from one generation before me all the way back to, I believe as far as the 13^th century as I have traced.  They are my family though I may not have met them, and their home cannot help but give off a familiar air.

To hear the lilt of mountain music you cannot help but hear the sounds from the Celtic peoples across the sea. Those are my people, and their music is mine.  In a strange juxtaposition, to hear a tiny marching band in the midst of an equally tiny stadium, surrounded by mostly cow pastures and hay fields, is also my music. Interestingly enough, I suppose my daughter will be able to claim both of these as well. She loves the mountains too, as I did as a child, but I am not sure she has felt the stirring yet. I didn’t until I was older.  I didn’t feel that longing to go like I do now. I know after her school days are done; she will likely look back on them with fond memories as well.  I suppose I have some years to wait before she can have these truly authentic homecomings, but I will happily wait. And while I do, I shall go out on this balcony and look out at the infinite ridges fading into lighter and lighter shades of blue.  I will close my eyes and breathe in the air that smells like cinnamon and history and leaves and home and I will exhale and smile as I imagine my people have done for centuries.  Whether you live there or not, there is no place like home.