Je Ne Regrette Rien

In the weeks since I've made my battle with Chronic Lyme Disease public, a question I'm often asked is "how'd you get it?"

Simple: my family.

Of COURSE it's my family's fault I got Lyme disease. Are you kidding me? They are 110% responsible for the situation I currently find myself in. This exhausting, mentally draining, emotionally and psychologically challenging battle all comes down to the choices and actions of my direct family - my mother and father and brothers - and my close family - my grandparents and uncles and cousins.

And you know what? "Je Ne Regrette Rien". I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Looking back on my life (from the ripe old age of 24), I know that growing up the way I did was the best possible childhood I could have ever asked for. I didn't know it then, but the amount of time I spent outside was food for my soul. I look back on it all now with such fondness that it's hard to describe just how much these places and memories mean to me:

Summer trips to Nannie + Pop's farm in Cumberland VA, where we'd run around hay bales and cattle grazing in the grasses, spend afternoons splashing around at the nearby lake, and spend nights catching fireflies and sleeping beneath the stars.

Monthly weekend trips with my brothers and Troop 747 of the Boy Scouts of America. Fishing, hiking, camping, shooting, biking, caving, swimming, white-water rafting, sailing, reenacting, exploring both untouched wilderness and big urban cities alike, all across the East Coast. 

Annual week-long BSA Summer Camps scattered across Virginia's gorgeous Blue Ridge, where us boys would rule for 7 days, establishing groups, hierarchies, and roles within the troop, creating our own small world within the camp and reigning as its kings (like a much less violent or disturbing Lord of the Flies).

Getting packed together with my brothers, tighter than a can of sardines, into the Mazda mini-van every Easter once Sunday Service was through, and heading down to North Carolina's Outer Banks and Roanoke Island. Fighting in the back seats as Dad got mad and Mom would roll the windows down to smell the salt of the sea. Sea foam green bedspreads and back porch sunshine overlooking the Roanoke Island marshes that splashed and croaked and buzzed and caw'ed to us. Sun burns and taking turns on boogie boards my brothers and I would bring along. Pirate adventures with Aunt Kim spent exploring the "uncharted wilderness" under a beach pier, in the branches of an old, rotting tree, or inside the tubing of a small town baseball field's outfield fence.

Longer trips with my brothers and parents to Disney's Hilton Head Island and Vero Beach Resorts. Wandering through Spanish moss and palm leaves, the taste of seafood freshly caught that morning, getting WAY too much sun early on in the trip but pushing through the pain to spend just one more hour on the beaches or at the harbor or laughing in the rolling waves of the ocean.

Finally - and most poignantly, especially today, Friday September 1st, the first day of Labor Day Weekend - Shenandoah.

Shenandoah  -  Big Meadows  -  Skyline Drive  -  Black Rock  -  Skyland.

These words bring up memories and emotions in me that go beyond language. Shenandoah is by far the most important place on earth to me. I don't know if it's my Scottish heritage or what, but those mountains speak to me. SING to me. The peace, and serenity, and deep spiritual connection I feel when I am there is incomparable to any other place I've ever been to on earth. And I've been to and seen a fair number of places: the Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Pacific, the North Sea, the Grand Canyon, London, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Iceland, etc.

But imagine the most comforting memory you have. Ever. Let it envelop you, enfold you. Put it on like your favorite old sweatshirt and let it hug the heck out of you. That's what my memories of Shenandoah and Big Meadows and Skyland do for me.

Every Labor Day Weekend for as long as I can remember my family went to Shenandoah. Each Friday beforehand we would, you guessed it, pack into that Mazda minivan of ours and head west from Richmond, Virginia. My brothers and I would be messing around in the back, Dad at the helm, and mom in the front seat - probably with a cooler of snacks or upcoming-school-year papers and materials at her feet. Along I64 we would drive, until we'd reach Zion Crossroads. From there, it was up to Barboursville, then Ruckersville, and then at last we would reach the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains (first one to see a mountain got a quarter - big money, back then). It was here, as the mountains came into view and the air got juuuuuust a little bit cooler that my brothers and I would start to get excited. We'd pull around and drive up to the gate for Shenandoah National Park, and the kindly park ranger would talk to my Dad and get us our entry ticket. I'd notice that the vacancy signs for each of the park lodges said "NO VACANCY" (as per usual), and the park ranger would hand my mom and dad a map and information about the park. They'd nod and smile back and thank the ranger, then as we drove away toss the map at my brothers to peruse because - I mean, come on - my family were PROS when it came to Shenandoah.

At last we were on Skyline Drive - the vein that pumps visitors of Shenandoah National Park up and down Appalachia. With it's gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) twists and turns, its slopes and climbs, it would take us higher and higher into the mountains. If we were lucky, it'd be foggy on top of the mountain, and after the heat of a balmy Virginia summer we were all to excited to be able to roll the windows down and let the clouds pour into the van and cool us off. For a glorious 30-40 minutes we would drive this hallowed road, and for the entirety of the drive my mother would always play the same CD: "Here On This Ridge", by Virginian musician Timothy Seamen. With his hammer dulcimer, flutes, piano, and acoustic guitar, Timothy wrote the soundtrack to Shenandoah - the melodies were a perfect realization of the beauty of the park, as if the mountains and trees had composed the songs themselves.

At last we would reach the turn off for Big Meadows Lodge, a veritable heaven on earth, and what I consider to be my unofficial second home (government papers pending). My mother's parents - my MeMaw and Paw Paw - would usually be there already, or have made the journey with us, and as we stepped out of the car and made our way inside, the cool air of the mountains would wash over my face as the smell of wet tree-bark and wood burning in the lodge's fireplace would envelop me as creaking rocking chairs and the soft sounds of other families mingling throughout the lodge were added to the weekend's symphony.

From there, our adventure would begin: hikes up to Black Rock Overlook to view the valley and towns below; rock climbing with my brothers along the mountainside while looking for firewood; walks along the trail to the general store and visitor center; quiet times for reading on the porch of our cabin (personal favorite was Harry Potter, read to us by my mother, and my collection of Zits Comic books); tight-rope walking the wooden fence just under my grandparents' room, a room from which we could look out over the meadow with Paw Paw's binoculars and watch quietly as does and their baby deer would wander through the woods; playing with my brothers on the lodge's playground, and freaking out when we spotted a mama black bear or her cub in the distant woods; finding sturdy branches that had fallen in a storm for my aunt to carve into fresh walking sticks; snacking the day away on pepperoni, Ritz crackers, and other bite size foods we'd purchased with our pocket-change at the Gordonsville pharmacy (usually homemade grape Twizzlers, caramels, or some such candies); occasional day trips into the valley to explore "small town Virginia" and go antiquing or eat top-notch VA barbecue; MeMaw quietly adding a few missing peaces to the 500+ piece jigsaw puzzle in the main lodge as we waited to go into the dining room for dinner; feasting on the splendors of the Lodge's kitchen - roast chicken, turkey dinners, fresh caught catfish and trout - followed of course by the most delicious blackberry ice cream you can possibly imagine; later, when we were older, hiking up Stony Man with my older brother Jeb and his fiance Jessie - sharing in their happiness and hope while taking engagement photos against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge. And finally, at the end of the day, the whole family gathering around the fireplace and playing card games like 31 - laughing ourselves silly and seeing who would be the first to "knock" (usually my dad) and send the loser off to make us hot chocolate. Or going to the lodge's Taproom at night to hear that beautiful hammer dulcimer ring out (see video below) as we relaxed after a long, glorious day in the most beautiful place on earth.

These are some of the most cherished memories of my family that I have. Especially those quiet moments on the porch. No talk, no worry, no fuss. Just my grandparents, aunt and mom and dad reading, or looking out over the valley as I whittled away in the corner. No need to say a word. No need to pray for anything better. The world, my world, our world, in that moment, was at peace. Was perfect.

This year I am far far away from Shenandoah. At this very moment, no doubt, my family is either making their way up Skyline Drive, or in all likelihood has already arrived at the lodge, to be wrapped in a sensory splendor of wood fires and blackberry bliss. And it hurts me not to be there, especially after my grandfather's medical scare earlier this year in May. My heart and my soul hurt to be so far from those mountains this weekend. So far from those rocks and rivers and forests; so far from the fireplace, and the cabin porch, and the card games and jigsaw puzzles; from my grandfather's binoculars, my grandmother's Sudoku books, my aunt's walking stick, my father's hiking boots, my mother's soft sweatshirts, and my brothers' laughter. From my family, and the mountains that were just as much a part of that family.

But to bring it all back around, I say all of this - ALL of this - to emphasize just how well a job my family - both direct and more distant - did in instilling an eternal love of nature in me. Beaches, farmlands, mountains, deserts, lakes, canyons, you name it - I probably love it. And no doubt it was in some patch of long grasses, in one of those fields, in one of those meadows of the mountains, or perhaps at a Boy Scout summer camp, or at my father's parents' farm out in Cumberland, that the tick who bore my Lyme disease found me to be a rather delicious looking human, and took his bite.

And if it ever came down to it, and I found myself in the unorthodox position where I could go back and choose between the childhood and young adulthood I've had, or NOT having Lyme disease, guess what?

I choose Lyme. Every time.