Blog

I practiced being a normal human being today.

My friend and colleague Angie Mattson Stegall and I got together at the Biltmore Estate for a mastermind session to talk about business goals and projects for 2025.

I paused my business after Hurricane Helene on September 27th. My client contracts are on hold until January. I’m not sending out marketing messages or making sales right now. I am recalibrating and reorienting.

This is the longest break I’ve had from my business in over a decade.

Tod…

I’ve never had so much fun picking up trash.

Gerton residents and others gathered together yesterday for a cleanup in the downtown area of Gerton. Our friend Shannon donated a dumpster, and over 30 of us spent several hours cleaning up trash.

I worked along a creek with my friend Julia. We sorted through rummage caught on the now expanded creek bed, managing to save a couple of stuffed animals and other toys belonging to a neighbor whose home was destroyed by flood water.

It was a big emotion…

Gratitude has changed for me since Hurricane Helene.

It’s no longer a litany of things I am grateful for or should be grateful for.

It’s not a way of encouraging myself to be more positive - hyping myself up when I’m irritated at reality. Reminding myself to focus on my desire instead of what I see in front of me.

Gratitude isn’t something I’m working towards every day.

It’s a fundamental shift in consciousness.

Every resident of Gerton is alive. No one is missing.

There were no bodies to …

We’re on week two of having armed guards with semi-automatic rifles at the entrance to Gerton.

We went about a week and a half without any security, which had previously been given by the Henderson County Sheriff’s Department. But then in the course of one day, there were three accidents that our fire department had to attend to, all with non-residents.

The first person flipped their car going around a sharp curve on a closed road at 5:30 in the morning.

The second started to go up that same …

Water is the foundation of life, but my relationship with it has changed so much since Hurricane Helene.

It’s Day 53 and Asheville still has no water.

Driving on the highway through downtown, I see semi-tractor trailers carrying potable water, enroute to sites all over Asheville.

There is water running through city pipes but it has too much chlorine, copper and lead in it to be safe. Once water was turned back on (on October 16th) to run from reservoirs through city pipes it wasn’t safe.

Tha…

There are many people who want to help, following a crisis.

Unaffected people descend on scenes of disasters to volunteer, flooding them with donations and willing hands. This is a phenomenon known as Disaster Convergence.

Our area has definitely experienced its fair share of Disaster Convergence. We’ve had hundreds of volunteers come to Gerton over the past month. Some simply dropped off very needed supplies, and then left, understanding they would just get in the way.

Some stayed and brough…

There is a name for how many people have responded, in the wake of Helene.

It is called Catastrophe Compassion.

Catastrophe Compassion is widespread and consistent across disasters. It follows war, terrorist attacks, natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and in our case, an apocalypse.

It is how people respond in the wake of crisis.

For decades, social scientists have documented two primary narratives about human behavior during crises. The f…

My husband and I do not always see eye-to-eye when it comes to politics.

We often vote differently. We often disagree.

We have the same fundamental beliefs, but we each have different perspectives about what it will take in order for our nation to support those beliefs.

When we take the time to get into the nitty gritty of it, we are often surprised by how closely our values align. But on the surface, it can look like they don’t.

As a child, I was taught that Conservatives are bad, and Liber…

There’s a homeless dog that has been wandering around since the Hurricane.

He is reddish brown, 50 or 60 pounds, middle-aged, and may be a Black Mouth Cur. His ears are darker than the rest of him, and he is stocky in stature. The dog has moved impressive distances - probably no more than a 15 mile radius, but up and done multiple mountains, crossing creeks, and destroyed roads. Every day he’s in a new place.

People have been posting photos of him in various local Facebook groups. Jeff put out…

Earlier this year, our Community Center had a showing of an hour-long documentary about The Great Flood of 1916. Up until Helene, it was the flood by which all other floods were measured here in Western North Carolina. It, too, was considered a 1,000 year event.

The Great Flood of 1916 caused the most destruction and devastation to date in our part of North Carolina, close to $500 million in today’s currency.
The Flood was the result of two tropical storms converging here in the mountains. The …