Returning to the place your heart never left
I had to read the memoir Flat Broke with Two Goats by Jennifer McGaha when I learned it takes place in a rustic century old three level cabin with a 150’ waterfall in plain view from the front door, adjacent to North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest. The title alone compelled me. It’s a true story spun around the expression, “Life is what happens when you have other plans,” not unlike the couple in movie “Funny Farm” who leave their big city jobs in search of a more authentic life in rural America.
Growing up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, I have spent many years driving through North Carolina, decades reading Blue Ridge Country Magazine, and hiking mountain trails, so I had to hear this tale. I thoroughly enjoyed these stories about her life after an involuntary eviction from the high life, leaving her family to “reboot” their lives in a neglected but affordable cabin surrounded by 50+ acres, complete with wolf spiders, snakes, and possums (some of them uninvited house guests), and their growing menagerie of dogs, goats, and chickens. There were moments in the book that made me laugh out loud, as much of what she confronts is reminiscent of the couple on 1965 sitcom “Green Acres.” She was two generations removed from large families raised in cabins, and often invokes memories of her grandparents, and what challenges they must have faced in their own lives.
This book is about connections, discerning the kind that aren’t important, and embracing the ones that nourish your soul, when life crumbles around you. It’s about connections of generations to a geography that draws you back to a place your heart never really left. It’s about what happens when your circumstances change, you think your life is over, but instead, discover a much more meaningful life, one that despite challenges, makes you truly happy. It’s one thing to go through the motions of life in sync with everyone around you, but learning skills that give new confidence amidst the breathtaking beauty of the blue ridge, is the best therapy for many situations.
Candace Bergman said her father once instructed her: you should always do the things you’re afraid to do. Jennifer McGaha and her family had the courage to go forward making the best of their situation, and learn the difference between having a life, and living one. The tuition of not giving up can be steep, but invaluable lessons are learned, and life, like the seasons, renews itself.
Author McGaha writes, “What did it mean to be reborn I wondered. How much did you have to leave behind? How much were you allowed to take? I wasn’t sure I knew the answers to these questions, but what I did know now without a doubt was that I was not alone, that I had never been alone. That the people who came before me were still here, would always be here, and there in the warm breeze, in the rustling trees, in the vast and endless sky, the ghosts of my grandparents gathered round me like stars.”
Growing up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, I have spent many years driving through North Carolina, decades reading Blue Ridge Country Magazine, and hiking mountain trails, so I had to hear this tale. I thoroughly enjoyed these stories about her life after an involuntary eviction from the high life, leaving her family to “reboot” their lives in a neglected but affordable cabin surrounded by 50+ acres, complete with wolf spiders, snakes, and possums (some of them uninvited house guests), and their growing menagerie of dogs, goats, and chickens. There were moments in the book that made me laugh out loud, as much of what she confronts is reminiscent of the couple on 1965 sitcom “Green Acres.” She was two generations removed from large families raised in cabins, and often invokes memories of her grandparents, and what challenges they must have faced in their own lives.
This book is about connections, discerning the kind that aren’t important, and embracing the ones that nourish your soul, when life crumbles around you. It’s about connections of generations to a geography that draws you back to a place your heart never really left. It’s about what happens when your circumstances change, you think your life is over, but instead, discover a much more meaningful life, one that despite challenges, makes you truly happy. It’s one thing to go through the motions of life in sync with everyone around you, but learning skills that give new confidence amidst the breathtaking beauty of the blue ridge, is the best therapy for many situations.
Candace Bergman said her father once instructed her: you should always do the things you’re afraid to do. Jennifer McGaha and her family had the courage to go forward making the best of their situation, and learn the difference between having a life, and living one. The tuition of not giving up can be steep, but invaluable lessons are learned, and life, like the seasons, renews itself.
Author McGaha writes, “What did it mean to be reborn I wondered. How much did you have to leave behind? How much were you allowed to take? I wasn’t sure I knew the answers to these questions, but what I did know now without a doubt was that I was not alone, that I had never been alone. That the people who came before me were still here, would always be here, and there in the warm breeze, in the rustling trees, in the vast and endless sky, the ghosts of my grandparents gathered round me like stars.”
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