Today is Friday the 13th. We had a two-hour school delay today in Western North Carolina for cold. (Yep: cold.) I’m wearing fleece pants and my Sorel snow boots. I didn’t brush my hair before dropping my older daughter at school, and I didn’t walk her in, either.
I’m not a bad mother. I just couldn’t remember if I’d brushed my teeth.
See, here are my boots. That’s Scout, taking a wee nap on her princess-and-the-pea bed.
Here’s my desk. My writing life is buried in there, somewhere.
Moving on ….
On Monday, I thought, “Ooh, I know what I’ll do this week! I’ll write a blog post each day, and post about 5 things I love in different categories. Like, my favorite places, people, movies, books, and more. What a great idea!”
On Monday afternoon, I forgot.
So, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I’d like to offer a list of 5 of the places that I love. Because I’m too tired to do more. Here they are:
1. A gradual curve in the Thrift Cove Trail in the Pisgah National Forest, Brevard, N.C.
The trail is really an old logging road, and here it flattens out to curve around the cove. There’s a spring there that disappears up into the birch-covered hills behind it. Where the creek trickles under the trail, in springtime, hundreds of subtle, tiny white wildflowers pop up like a gift. When I was trail running and hiking weekly–back in my other life–Scout and I would always stop here. She’d drink in the water, and I’d drink in the peace.
2. The spot where my husband’s shoulders meet his collar bone.
There’s a smooth, muscled indention there that I love. I haven’t seen it in a while, it being winter and us having been sick for a month. Plus it’s 55 degrees inside our house. But I know it’s there. I have hopes I’ll see it again.
3. A particular back booth in Coffee Corner diner on Main Street, in Montpelier, Vermont.
I love this place in winter and in summer. I love the scrumptious omelets and fresh bread, the never-ending coffee, the big windows giving way to a bright world of people, the laughs I’ve shared with friends there (mostly inappropriate). I love that when I’m there, I’m a writer.
4. The Hot Springs in Boulder, Montana.
I soaked here for several nights over the month I spent in the area, back in 2007, as a Writer-in-Residence at the (sadly, now defunct) Montana Artists Refuge. That month, I did more hiking than I probably did writing. I drank in the Rockies of Southwestern Montana like wine. Most nights, floating in the hot springs, I’d watch big mule deer emerge from the forest at dusk, then disappear like magic into the dark.
5. Standing beneath the trees at my daughter’s elementary school.
Rain or shine, hot or cold, this spot is a place I love for one reason only: When my daughter’s kindergarten class rounds the corner of the school at let-out, my daughter takes one look at her teacher (who sees me and nods), and then comes sprinting for me and her little sister. She yells, “Mama!” As if I’m her favorite person in the entire world.
I know this won’t last, and I treasure it.
I hope y’all will share your 5 favorite anythings–people, places, books, movies, things, meals–by responding here!
Katherine Scott Crawford is an award-winning writer, newspaper columnist, and college English teacher. She’s the author of Keowee Valley, an historical adventure set in the Revolutionary-era Carolinas and in the Cherokee country.
