Come in, she said...

Shelter from the Storm

“'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood.

When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud.

I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.

Come in, she said,

I'll give you shelter from the storm.”

       Wayne Hussey, Simon Hinkler, Mick Brown, Craig Adams

Those of you who are old enough for such things will remember this haunting ballad as it was sung by Bob Dylan on his album, Blood on the Tracks. It played on Sirius radio's Coffeehouse yesterday as I was driving out of the green thickets of Flat Rock to meet one of my cousins for lunch. Hearing its story of loss and redemption catapulted me back into my childhood here in the generous lap of the Blue Ridge mountains. One of the reasons I come “home” to this place is that for all of my growing years, it was 'she' who gave me 'shelter from the storm.' 


I was a child of the woodlands in the truest sense. Our household was often a minefield of conflict, alcoholism, poverty and loneliness, like so many Southern families. My solution was to go to the woods. Some of my earliest memories are of creating bowers of green from the canopies of a fallen trees, or climbing to the very top of a tree where I could survey the world below without being seen. The solace this afforded one lone child was my saving grace.

I'll bet when you think of home, you have images of such childhood places of comfort. Perhaps your memories were not 'roads full of mud', but even so, most of us remember places that were ours alone; where we went to find refuge. For me, that place was verdant, green, full of moss and damp earth. It was scented with rhododendron and boxwood and wild yarrow. I learned to identify the songs of the pileated wood pecker, kingfisher, wren and the wood thrush. It was here--in these ancient mountains--and they will always be home. I leave today, but I know I will be back again and again.

In the spirit,

Jane