“The mark of true intelligence is the ability to hold two diametrically opposite views in your mind at the same time and still function.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Today I am back to civilization, if this office is what it means to be so. This past weekend I spent two days on the wild and scenic Chatanooga fighting furious rocks and water with flat plastic bats as the dark wooded mountains called down to me that I had a pretty mouth and should ‘squeal like a pig’. I paid good money for this treatment, as it suits me far better than any spa package at the Doubletree.

In the hills I gave a mountain man five bucks to tell me his grandfather’s method of diving into natures force to emerge happier and better educated than those struggling to tame it. Then the recipes to old mother’s secret potions that only pharmaceutical companies know. Then the technique to produce a masterpiece no less expressive than that of Vincent Van Gogh. He raced over all of this quickly, because that was all it took for me to remember these things as if it were an instinct, or carved along the walls of my veins.

I called my mother to tell her all of this, and my knack for understanding common uses for mysterious Appalachian engineered farm implements. She called me a ‘Renaissance Woman’, which I’ve decided may very well be the greatest compliment I’ve ever received.