INSPIRATION

By Sharon May

We all have those moments when a jolt of inspiration infuses our writing. A conversation had or overheard, a book read, a sunset seen, anything can inspire us and bring us closer to the spirit of the subjects we tackle. By spirit, I mean that essence of what we are trying to re-create in our writing, those qualities that make the subject different and noteworthy.

Eastern Kentucky mountain landscapes and the inhabitants usually give me that jolt. But trips to see family in 2020 were depressing, not inspirational. I felt the lifelines to my birthplace fading away, and just maybe the Appalachian ways of life were dying too.

The hollow where I visited grandparents and other family and friends no longer exists, having been bulldozed for a new road that will reduce drive time radically between McDowell and Pikeville area. For most of my life, family gatherings included upwards of 30 people. Last year with the pandemic and recent deaths and illnesses, we couldn’t get a foursome for Pinochle.

Last month, I was home to celebrate my dad’s birthday and decorate graves for Memorial Day (in the hills, we celebrate everyone who has died, not just those in military service). Traveling from my parents’ house on US 23 to the two cemeteries up Left Beaver, we moved from “civilization” (what I call the world of fast-food and Walmart) to the reality of Appalachia. Four-laned highways dwindled to one-and-a-half lanes that require someone pull off the road if you meet another car, which in turn become one lane that curls its way up mountains without the benefit of shoulders nor guard rails.

Deep in the mountains where crumbling shacks, some of which are inhabited, sit precariously on mountain sides or in flood plains, I find inspiration. There is beauty, even in those shacks, in the lush greens of summer, constant reminders of the poverty and hopelessness that prevail.

Appalachian people are simultaneously complex and stereotypical, providing me with wonderful characters. We are a quare folk, as we say when we refer to our strange ways and honor code. Imagine waking up from a nap, only to find a middle-aged stranger dressed in all black from cowboy boots to leather cowboy hat sitting in your parents’ dining room, chatting about smoking pot as if he’s known the family all his life. Turns out, he is the new companion of my widowed aunt, and from a family, my dad knows well, having worked his several of his relatives. “Who you kin to?” and “Where are you from?” establish our links to our pasts.

Appalachia has changed, like all of America, as a result of media and transportation, but it is still a unique part of America, a culture with a story to tell. Even as my family shrinks, the hills still stand, and I am inspired.