writing

Mountain Alibi

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 2 Comments

I’ve written about being in a band a couple of times: first when describing how I felt about a wonderful group of folks who supported my writing, and the second when describing my actual, music-based band, Late Night Revelations. LNR started playing together just before COVID lockdown, then practiced on Tuesday evenings for the next six years, providing a consistent space in our lives for creativity, catharsis, companionship, and lots of laughter. We performed for groups of friends on four occasions (we weren’t big on playing out) and recorded two albums.

JR (my husband/bassist) and Brevis (guitar/vocals) wrote our second album’s title track while hanging out on Brevis’ land in Marshall, North Carolina.

Pretty inspiring spot, right?

When they returned from their jam session and played the riffs for me, they let me know the track was called Mountain Alibi. I think they’d hoped I would write a crime-based song to match the title, like an old timey country murder tune. Instead, I wrote an anthem for introverts, describing excursions into nature as a go-to excuse for avoiding social situations. It might not have been what they’d expected, but the subject matter made for a really pretty music video.

The month before JR and I moved to California, LNR played our final show to about thirty people at our friends’ farm. Despite my aversion to playing anywhere outside my own house, it was really fun. And how often do you get to dress like this?

Boxes of Sofia water were on prominent display at the show, both to offer refreshment and as a nod to our song Sofia, written about the effects of Tropical Storm Helene on Western North Carolina. After the storm, much of our region didn’t have running water for weeks, and potable water didn’t come out of our taps for months. Sofia’s cardboard boxes of water were a welcome alternative to the hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles that were distributed during that time.

A Sofia box also came in handy when one of our speakers went out during the show, and Brevis and I had to share a mic to harmonize on her song Virginia Blues.

I call this photo “B on a Box”

It hurt my heart to leave LNR when we moved to California. After six years of Tuesdays, I’d come to rely on my band and bandmates as a regular source of support, encouragement, and inspiration. Through extreme joys, extreme hardships, successes, and failures, we grew as people and as a group. I’m so grateful for that time. In my adolescence and early adulthood, as I moshed my way through life, I always figured there’d be no experience quite like being in a band. And I was right.

[If you’d like to hear Mountain Alibi, you can download it off Bandcamp or stream it on YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora, Deezer, Tidal, or probably wherever else you look (except for that one place that rhymes with modify). Again, here’s the lovely Mountain Alibi music video that JR made. And huge thanks to Matt Williams at The Eagle Room for being our producer on both albums – it was truly awesome to work with him. 🕺🏽]

Cali Catch-Up

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 6 Comments

Photo-sharing is the one thing I’ve missed since jettisoning myself out of social media about a year ago. To address that loss, I’ve decided to use this space to share some pictures of what I’ve been up to since returning to California in late-November. Of course, this strategy only addresses half the issue. I’m still missing out on other people’s photos, but I don’t know what to do about that besides ask my loved ones to text me everything they post online…which they probably/definitely won’t do.

I’ll start with the big trees:

The dogs say, “What tree? Another dog is approaching!”

I really missed California’s incredible array of trees and pined (ha ha) for them ever since we left in ’09.

Next, the coast:

Daisy’s first Pacific Ocean experience. She approved.

Titus at Point Reyes. He was introduced to mussels and barnacles and thought they were very scary. But the rest of the beach was great.

This is how Titus lets us know we’ve walked far enough.

I’ve done a lot of wandering around outdoors. I’m unemployed and surrounded by beautiful, natural spaces, so what else can I do? 🙂 (Those of you who know me even a tiny bit won’t be surprised by the mushroom portraiture.)

On the Vista Loop at Sugarloaf Ridge. I’d had my first visit to this park the day before and it was a total failure – I ended up trudging uphill on the road in the rain for over a mile – so I had JR go back with me the next day to have a redemptive experience. And we sure did!

Joyous JR on a ridge trail

Raindrops on a spiderweb

This branch/root looks like it’s running.

San Francisco and the bay from the summit of San Bruno Mountain

That hill is made of compressed volcanic ash from millions of years ago!

We got to visit Santa Cruz and reunite with our sea lion pals:

And I got to snap a shot of this place that was right by my first apartment in Santa Cruz. I call it the Watch That First Step House:

Here are some flowers:

😆

Here’s what our Christmas tree looked like:

And here’s a lit-up palm in Sonoma’s downtown plaza:

Here I am with my dear friend Caro, whose birthday we got to celebrate just a week after we arrived:

We’ve been friends for over 20 years ~ I’m so excited we’re back in the same state!

And finally, here’s Mom with Titus:

Both dogs are in love with their Grammy and can’t believe how lucky they are to have her move with them to California. 🥰

Yay, I got to share pictures!! I’m so happy. I really hope you liked them…and that you start texting me yours. 😁

Travels

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 4 Comments

In my adult life, I’ve lived in fifteen homes: one in Key West, Florida; seven in California (six in Santa Cruz and one in Watsonville); two in Portland, Oregon; one on Orcas Island; and four in North Carolina (three in Asheville and one in Black Mountain). Yesterday, I landed at my sixteenth, this one in Sonoma, California.

While my body feels near collapse, well aware of what it just went through, my mind can’t really believe that we traveled for 8 days, crossing North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before reaching the Golden State.

The day we left, we awoke at 6 a.m. and spent the next five hours loading the remainder of our belongings into a PODS container, then making the house look like this:

The dogs had to guard the door to make sure we didn’t forget them.

That was a miserable, exhausting experience, followed by a 7-hour drive. Thankfully, the AirBNB that greeted us in Jackson, Tennessee featured several of these lamps, which was a pleasant consolation for the somewhat miserable day:

Just as he did before our last cross-country move, my husband JR got us walkie talkies for the journey. When I mentioned this to my mom, she said, “Will we have handles? I want to be Eager Beaver.” She chose this moniker in homage to a weekend trip we’d taken with two other families when I was a kid. There had been a CB radio in each family’s vehicle, and the kids in said vehicles had periodically taken turns singing The Beaver Song to each other. [For reference, here is a YouTube lady enthusiastically demonstrating The Beaver Song with wide-eyed glee.] After one particularly rousing version, there’d been a brief pause, and then a grizzled male voice had crackled over the airwaves and asked, in a thick Southern drawl: “What in the HELL was that?” All us kids had laughed about that for the duration of the weekend, and then over the next ten years.

I told Mom that yes, of course we’d have handles, and that JR and I were Joe Rodeo and Chickenhead, respectively. About an hour after we embarked on our journey, Mom heard her walkie talkie crackle and thought one of us was trying to reach her. She picked it up and said, “Eager Beaver, come in!” Unfortunately for her, neither of us had been trying to reach her, nor were we within range, and it was some random man who replied, “Eager Beaver? Hey, y’all, we got ourselves an eager beaver over here. Eager Beaver, I got some wood that needs choppin’ – come on!”

😂

Mom let out a squeak and threw her walkie talkie to the floor. She didn’t change her handle, though. Eager Beaver for life!

Over the 8-day trip, we stayed in six AirBNBs. I learned that there seems to be a rule among AirBNB hosts that their home should feature at least one image of a cow.

Also, a framed version of 1 Corinthians 13:4 is very popular, because all travelers need to remember that love is patient, kind, etc.

Our journey was long, tiring, and really quite wonderful. We got to experience the big skies of Arkansas and Oklahoma:

We got to see family:

And beautiful places…

The Foothills in Albuquerque

Painted Desert National Park

[I used Magic Eraser to edit out Daisy’s leash, and now this photo gives me heart palpitations.]

Heading towards the San Francisco Mountains in Arizona

The dogs slept and snuggled through it all.

In my 2025 calendar, this is the image for November:

Before we embarked on our journey, I sent the photo to Mom and JR, suggesting that we, as a traveling trio, would likely be rotating through the emotional states of the pictured wolves, namely: frenzy, wariness, and irritation. In reality, though, we were more like this:

We stayed positive, kept ourselves and each other sane, and savored each leg of the journey.

And now, though it feels unbelievable and surreal, we have arrived in Sonoma, and we have so much learning and exploring to do, it’s a bit overwhelming. However, I’ll strive to face the task just like our 8-day journey:

Stay in the moment.

Breathe.

Observe.

Appreciate.

Take my time.

And enjoy.

Slug Porn

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 1 Comment

[Viewer warning: This post contains sexually explicit images of slugs.]

During a backyard fire with our nephew last summer, I noticed something on the unoccupied chair beside me, then shone my phone’s flashlight on this scene:

I’d seen in a nature documentary that slugs are hermaphrodites who entangle themselves when mating and both end up pregnant afterwards, and I assumed this was the start of such an act. My husband, nephew, and I expressed gratitude that we’d chosen the three slug-free chairs around the fire, as sitting on the slugs would’ve been super gross, especially given their size – about the length and width of an index finger.

We chatted and fed the fire for several minutes before I remembered the love slugs, shone the light on them again, and found them fully entwined, hanging from a string of slime:

I’ve mentioned before that if I think something’s gross, my sister will think it’s cool, so when I encounter gross things out in the world, I take pictures and send them to her. True to form, when I sent the above shot to my sister, she wrote back: Coooooooooollll!!! The rest of us were not convinced, however, our reactions trending more in the “ew” zone.

A few minutes later, I turned the light on the pair once again, and this time, I almost barfed.

I mean, what the hell is happening here?? I sent the image to my sister along with: They’re creating a slime creature! A few seconds later, she wrote back: That is the freaking coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time! I’m sure you totally agree!

At this point, my nephew was laughing really hard, because every time I took a flash photo of the amorous pair, I’d blurt out, “I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!” I just felt bad. Here are these slugs peacefully trying to fulfill their life goal of procreation, and some big lout keeps shining the brightest light in the world on them.

From there, I stopped taking pictures, but what happened next was this: the two climbed back up the string of slime and separated, then one of them ATE THE STRING OF SLIME while the other one left the scene. I have no idea what happened to the slime creature they’d created. It probably broke off and is now running for Congress.

I think it’s very telling that I haven’t done any subsequent research to find out what was actually going on with those slugs. I am curious, but I know that going down that rabbit hole would involve lots more images of slime strands and slime creatures and I just CAN’T. Blech. Perhaps I’ll ask my sister to conduct the research, then give me the Cliffs Notes version…sans visual aids, please and thank you. 😁

Face Mapping

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 4 Comments

I turned 50 last month.

The big 5-0

Life’s 5th floor

Version 5.0

The half-century

Yup, it’s a big one.

In general, I feel better physically, emotionally, and mentally than I did upon hitting previous decade milestones. My eyes don’t work as well as they used to, but my mind is clearer, my spirit’s more settled, and my body feels strong and healthy. When I think back on how I got to this place, I can identify a host of experiences and lessons that brought me here, and when I look at my face, I see the map of that journey etched into my skin.

Most prominent on my face map is a myriad of smile lines:

But don’t let them fool you. While it’s true that I smile and laugh a great deal, I was an early adopter of gallows humor and maintained that dark, sardonic outlook for most of my life. So, many of those lines were carved by evil. 😈

The second most prominent features on my facial map are the deeeeeeeep creases between my eyes. I call them my WTF lines, because they were created after years and years of doing this:

I mean seriously, world, what in the actual…

Turns out, after you make that face twenty times a day for decades, the lines figure they’ll be back in an hour, anyway, so they might as well stay put.

That, in a nutshell, is my 50-year-old face: a topography of carved-in laughter and anger. And that totally tracks. Seeing my white hair, however, still catches me off guard. I think it’s because my hair was in a slow transition from brown to white for many years, and then, between May and September of 2020, so many terrifying things happened in rapid succession that all the remaining brown was seemingly scared away, leaving me with a head of hair like my maternal grandfather’s. And it’s weird to look in the mirror and see him.

I can’t say I mind, though. He was a good egg. I mean, just look at those smile lines. 🙂

You’re Welcome, Fellow Shoppers

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 3 Comments

We’re having a classic southeastern summer, categorized by high heat, absurd humidity (aka “air soup”), and sporadic, extreme storms. The pattern of blazing sun periodically interrupted by deafening downpours reminds me of the summer of 2016, which I spent primarily outdoors in my new role as a stone mason’s laborer.

After a couple of decades in the social service/mental health world, I resigned from a position working with kids in foster care and asked my dear friend, a stone mason, if I could work with her for a while. She graciously agreed, even though I had no experience whatsoever in stone masonry, or any other construction trade.

Here she is saying, “Welcome to your morning task!”

And here I am facing my afternoon task

The work was hard, but it was rewarding. Never before in my adult life had I seen tangible results of my efforts at the end of a workday, and that felt great, despite the smashed fingers and toes and aching muscles.

Woo hoo, I helped make that!

One day, however, brought exhaustion with no reward. This was a “mud-mixing” day, when my only job was to dump dry concrete mix into a wheelbarrow, add water from a hose, stir up the concoction with a hoe, roll the wheelbarrow across the worksite, pour it out next to some folks who were building a wall, then roll the wheelbarrow back to the mixing area. I repeated this action for eight hours while the weather did its summery thing: blazing hot sun ➡️ explosive downpour ➡️ blazing hot sun ➡️ explosive downpour. I must’ve gotten soaked and sun-dried about half a dozen times throughout the day, with copious amounts of sweat and concrete dust seeping into the mix all the while.

At 5 p.m., I brushed and stamped off as much dirt and dust as possible, then got in my car, planning to swing by the grocery store on my way home. Stopped at a red light soon after leaving worksite, I was hit by a smell so horrendous, I actually gagged. For a moment, I wondered if I’d left a bag of dog poop in my trunk after a recent hike. I’d done this very thing about a year before and had wondered for weeks about the gross mystery smell in my car. However, as I began to search for the profound stench’s source, a terrible truth revealed itself.

The source was me. I was the bag of shit left in the trunk.

After hours of repeatedly sweating, getting poured on, and baking in the sun, I’d become the foulest blob of putrescence ever to ooze across the earth. And who knows – maybe I’d eaten something particularly revolting the night before, like a decomposing corpse covered in gorgonzola cheese, and had just forgotten about it. Because I sure did smell that way.

Needless to say, I vetoed my plan to stop by the store and drove straight home instead for a 12-hour shower. And every day that we have weather patterns like those we’ve had so often this summer, I think back on the time I could have, if I had so chosen, traumatized a group of unsuspecting grocery store shoppers with a cloying, malodorous smog powerful enough to make them cry. I swear, given the level of stench, they could’ve had me arrested for chemical terrorism.

In an effort to end things on a positive note (rather than with the words “chemical terrorism”), I’ll share a nice thing that stems from our mercurial summer weather:

What a beauty, huh? It was well over a foot high. 😊 ❤️

Balancing Act

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 8 Comments

I haven’t written in a long time. For me, the last several months have been defined by a general numbness, as my system tries, with little success, to process gargantuan levels of rage, disappointment, and despair. While emotional and mental chaos open some people’s creative doors, that’s not the case for me. My imagination has been pushed aside. I don’t even want to work on editing, worried I’ll make my stories worse instead of better.

Still, on the eternal quest to hold grief in one hand and gratitude in the other, I continue to take pictures. They serve as ever-present reminders that there is beauty in this world.

I’ve photographed trees and forests:

Various forms of water:

Dragons:

Flowers:

And other fun things, like winter-wrapped Tiny Titus:

A rollerskating banana:

Deer dozing in a cemetery:

And a silly reflection in a teapot:

Until the numbness fades and my full-scale existence comes back online, I guess I’ll use this space for photos. And in the day to day, I’ll do my best to keep breathing, drink plenty of water, and, as much as possible, stay in the light.

Scammy McScamersons

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 3 Comments

The other day, my husband JR – a teacher for over 20 years – received a friend request and personal message from a “former student.” The message was pretty generic – “Thanks so much for believing in me when I was your student;” “You made a big difference in all of our lives;” etc. – but here’s the thing: JR had no idea who the person was. Per her profile, her age and location fit with his teaching history, but she was completely unfamiliar, and as he re-read her message, he said, “This sounds like it was created by ChatGPT.”

What his experience tells me is this: scammers are targeting people with specific professions. Going after teachers is a good bet; I imagine they’ll target social workers and counselors, as well, aiming to catfish people with a bent towards compassion, more apt to fall for a sob story. If JR had bitten the hook and replied, “Hey, thanks for your message, but I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else,” the scammer would’ve responded with something like: “Oh! I’m so sorry! You really seemed familiar…” then asked a bunch of ingratiating questions, prompting a back-and-forth which would’ve eventually, inevitably led to: “You know, I hate to ask this, but I’ve fallen on some really hard times…”

At this point, we all know not to go out and buy a bunch of gift cards to pay off out-of-the-blue bank debts (right, Great Aunt Gladys??), or to give the IRS, FBI, or Sheriff’s Department – who are suddenly texting us, for some reason – our credit card’s CVV code, even though they URGENTLY need it in the next THIRTY MINUTES or we are DEFINITELY GOING TO JAIL. But these extortion scams just keep getting weirder. Instead of creating a false sense of urgency around impending doom, they’ve entered a creepier realm.

For example, have y’all gotten the PDF yet that features a photo of your house, names of folks you know, and a demand for money or they’re totally gonna ruin your life because they know where you live??? Blech. So gross. Of course, all of those images and information are easily obtained via public domains on the internet, but it definitely feels like a sinister threat and privacy violation when it pops up in your inbox.

And you’ve probably received the random texts and WhatApp messages that say something like “Hey,” or, “How’ve you been?” or, “I’m here, where are you?” or, “Julie, I came to pick up the flowers, but it’s the wrong order.” If you’re compelled to tell these randos they’ve got the wrong number, feel free to do so, but please know: if they try to keep the conversation going, it’s a scam. No one out there is looking to make genuine human connections through accidental wrong numbers. This isn’t a rom-com, people. This is the real world, and the real world is BLEAK. These strangers don’t want to fall in love with you. They just want to steal your life’s savings.

All of that being said (and speaking of how bleak the real world is), the sad fact is that many of the folks generating scam messages and catfishing hooks are doing so against their will, as victims of human trafficking, so I do try not to respond in a super hateful way. I just delete, block, and report. And sometimes, if I’m having a particularly bad day, I might send one of these:

At least it’s cheery

…and then delete/block/report.

So let’s spread the word about these creepy, yucky scams, everyone. Tell your friends! Tell your families! Tell the elderly, and pray that someone will do the same for us when we’re in their shoes! It’s a little terrifying to think of how these scams will evolve over the next 5, 10, 20 years. Eek. I mean, for god’s sake, I barely even understand TikTok. I may be doomed.

#weathered

~ Kelly Wolf ~ Leave a comment

A little over a month ago, Hurricane Helene smashed through Western North Carolina, washing away lives, livelihoods, roads, and homes. People are still without water and power. Many have died. Some are still missing. The piles of debris are like a new, tragic set of mountains – giant heaps of gutted houses, smashed cars, and god-knows-what that washed downriver.

Soon after the storm, a friend sent me this diagram, titled The Emotional Life Cycle of a Disaster Explained:

Image from Episcopal Relief and Development

Given the level of destruction in WNC, the timeline between “Honeymoon” and “Reconstruction” will be a very long one, and some things can’t be reconstructed, like the thousands of downed trees. Yes, we’ll plant new ones, but it’ll be hundreds of years before they provide the lush, cooling canopies of the past.

Despite the reality of these dire circumstances, as soon as the storm blew through, the #strong label was everywhere. When did this phenomenon begin – maybe fifteen, twenty years ago? In the immediate aftermath of catastrophes, communities self-declare as, or are proclaimed to be, #strong.

I get the sentiment behind it: We will not be cowed by this. We are brave. We are resilient. We will persevere. And all of that is true. The WNC community has been incredible in its unity, compassion, generosity, and untiring aid over the past month.

But the instant, automatic application of #strong also sidesteps important parts of reaction and recovery. What about mourning and working through grief? What about granting ourselves the grace to collapse a little? What if, as I see scenes of destruction and hear stories of lost family members, friends, neighborhoods, and homes, I don’t feel like being #strong? What if my feelings are more along the lines of #gutted, #exhausted, or #curledinaballofsadness?

When I do feel hopeful, helpful, and encouraged – which is more and more often these days – I’m still balancing those feelings with profound grief and loss, like #strong + #heartache. And that’s okay. Recovery is complicated, and accepting the presence of pain is its own kind of strength.

I took this photo last week. It gives me hope. The water, though full of silt, still offers a reflection. Trees are down in those mountains, but many more stand than have fallen. This land grieves, buries its dead, and spawns new life. It is broken, and it is healing, and it is strong.

❤️

[For folks wanting to donate to WNC’s recovery, Beloved Asheville, Samaritan’s Purse, and Hearts with Hands are doing amazing, hands-on work throughout the region, and the River Arts District and LEAF Artist Relief Fund are collecting funds to support and rebuild the arts community.]

Four Years

~ Kelly Wolf ~ 1 Comment

On the morning of Monday, September 14, 2020, I received a message from my supervisor, letting me know that my colleague’s mother had died of COVID over the weekend. My heart ached. When I’d talked with my colleague the week before, she’d told me her elderly mother had developed a fever and started to cough, and I knew this was the eventuality she’d feared most.

Needing to clear my head, I decided to take a quick walk before the workday began. About two blocks from home, Mom called. “I can’t believe I have to tell you this,” she said in a tone I’d never heard before. “Daddy died.”

I turned around, already blinded by tears, and stumbled back to the house. My husband’s eyes grew wide when he saw me. I choked out what had happened, and he yelled, “No!” We held each other and sobbed. When I was able to catch a breath, I told Mom I’d pack a bag and head to her house right away. Before leaving, I sent a quick text to my supervisor: My dad died last night. Heading to my mom’s. I’ll be in touch when I can. In the back of my mind, I wondered if my supervisor would even believe me, given that morning’s news about my colleague. What are the chances that both of his employees would lose parents on the same weekend? (As my dad would’ve said: “Apparently 100%.”)

A few minutes from Mom’s house, the skies opened up, and I drove the final mile of steep, twisting mountain roads in a blinding rainstorm. My knuckles were white and jaw clenched tight by the time I pulled into Mom’s driveway. She stood in the garage, her face pinched with worry. Apparently, we were both in the same mindset about the likely outcome of my drive through this storm. Given our family’s recent circumstances – six months into my sister’s cancer treatment, tag-teaming with my parents to care for 8- and 5-year-old boys who couldn’t go to school or see friends, and preparing for my sister’s upcoming hospitalization for a stem cell transplant, scheduled the following week – it would’ve been entirely apt for me to be swept off a cliff by a flash flood on the morning of my father’s death.

But that didn’t happen. We went on. One foot in front of the other. Gallons of tears shed. Countless deep breaths. And somehow, four years passed.

Since I hang the necklace I wear every day on a photo of Dad and me, I look at his smiling face at least twice a day. Sometimes I look at him and think, I’m sorry you missed this. You would’ve loved it. Other times, I think, I’m glad you’re not here for this. Because I know some events would’ve made him furious, or despondent, or just left him feeling helpless.

And every single time the necklace goes on or comes off the frame, I think, I miss you. That sentiment never wavers.