Sliding Doors

I wrote a book once.

In fact, that book was born out of this very same blog, which I’m now resurrecting. 

(I believe that it’s time for the blog art form to make a return. Time to slow down and read more than a few blistering characters at a time.) 

In that book, I wrote about the closets in my childhood bedroom, in a cabin by the river way back in the mountains:

My room had two closets on either side of the window seat, and I pretended they were elevators. After shoving the junk to the side (I was not an organized child) I got in, sliding the door behind me. After a brief pause—one, two, three, four—I slide the door back open and voila! I was in a whole different place!

My life at this moment feels a lot like those sliding doors. I’m ending a nearly ten-year chapter at WNC Nonprofit Pathways, where I’ve been a confidant for community leaders all across these mountains I love so much.

After tomorrow, I’ll step through the sliding doors and emerge into a place that looks just the same (since I’ve been working from home all this time) and yet is transformed. 

Into what? I’m figuring that out.

 

It looks like I’ll going back in time. Venturing to South Carolina and the “faraway land of Alabama,” as I called it in my book. Learning about my ancestors who displaced native people, enslaved other people, deeded their plantations to future generations, and handed down their genes and privilege to me.

I’ll be back on the quest to learn what it all means.