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I had no idea when I married Jeff that we would live through a pandemic, an apocalypse, and multiple hard deaths in the first 5 years of our relationship.

There is no one I would rather be married to when shit gets real, y’all.

Jeff could have spent the last four weeks just focused on the needs of our family, but instead he immediately began raising funds, coordinating supply deliveries for our community, and became the hub of communication for Gerton through his Facebook group, We are Gerton…

I’ve been working behind the scenes to get international media coverage for what’s happening here in Gerton.

Click the link below to read an article I had published in The Guardian yesterday.

‘We were not prepared’: three weeks in a small town devastated by Hurricane Helene

Special thanks to Rachel Obordo, a journalist with The Guardian, who encouraged me to share my stories. I appreciate your tender feedback and unconditional encouragement.

The Small Business Administration called me this past week to tell me that they are out of money for any business who has applied for Economic Injury Disaster relief, which I did on October 4th.

Specifically, the SBA states on its website that new loan offers will be delayed due to a “lapse in Congressional funding.”

According to the SBA, Congress has to both be back in session, and also agree to approve additional funds, in order for the SBA to cover these loans.

Congress will not reconvene …

We’re headed today to a beach outside of Charleston, SC, for a much-needed respite.

Forty-five minutes into the drive, there are no signs of devastation. The warm weather and brilliant day allow me to notice, for the first time, that the leaves on the trees have changed color.

All of my memories from the past 3+ weeks are associated with place, yet it took until today for me to even notice that the brilliance of autumn here in our mountains has already arrived.

These are some of the places th…

Jeff and I attended church together today, a first for our marriage.

I’m a Quaker minister and Shamanic practitioner; he’s a lapsed Catholic. We went to a Baptist service, at the only church in our small community.

The pews were filled with several members of the Disaster Relief EMS, as well as North Carolina Highway Patrol, one of whom even served as pianist during the service.

The pianist, a gentle black man, joyous to find himself in church among strangers, led us in a beautiful hymn about…

This is a superficial post because you know what? I deserve it.

The week of the hurricane I was due for a haircut.

I attempted to call my salon on Jeff’s working cell phone three days after the hurricane hit, to cancel my appointment. We were still trapped on our mountain and couldn’t get into town.

The call wouldn’t go through. The error message said the phone line didn’t exist anymore.

I eventually got an email from my salon two weeks later saying the salon was completely flooded and was t…

I am not a survivor.

To be honest, I’ve grown to hate that word.

There is no part of me that wants to be known as the person who survived four immediate family members dying by suicide.

Or surviving a 30,000-year hurricane event that devastated our area.

Or surviving rape. Or my childhood. Or whatever.

Surviving suggests that those experiences become the basis from which I operate, make decisions, and function. Surviving keeps me tied to the past. I am not enduring, suffering, or withstandi…

Yesterday my 48-year-old brother Bryce died by suicide.

Bryce was a gentle soul. He struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and overdoses, for nearly four decades. My prayers are with his three children, who lost their father way too early. I understand their pain. Our father also died when he was 48.

May Bryce rest in the peace he’s been searching for his entire life.

Less than 3 months ago, our 40-year-old brother Alex died by suicide.

Three years ago this week, our 35-year-old brother …

Hurricane Helene was a 30,000-year storm event.

This was the most catastrophic tropical cyclone event that has happened on our continent, according to NOAA data.

Here in western North Carolina, we had 31.3 inches of rainfall in three days, causing massive flooding and mudslides.

At least 230 people have been declared dead, with hundreds more still missing, according to NBC News.

Helene is the deadliest hurricane to strike US mainland since Katrina in 2005.

CBS News called this biblical deva…

Here are some things that have helped significantly as we’ve been navigating this brave, new world.

Right before our power went out, I filled 17 quart-sized Ziploc bags with water and froze them. I divided those bags of ice between our two freezers, and between them and running our generator for 5 hours a day, we were able to keep all our frozen food frozen. Nothing spoiled, which is miraculous after 17 days of no power.

We have dinner every night with Erik and Kate, our next-door neighbors. …