My Roots Are Appalachian

"I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say."Flannery O'Connor

Exhibit A:

"What if we've messed this up for ourselves? What if we could have made this place really great for us and we somehow missed out on that? Did we give up too easily? Are we just being selfish and naive? Or do we just know deep down that we were never meant to stay here? Are our dreams too big for the present? Or are they too big for us period? Is there such a thing as that...dreams that are too big? Are we just destined to be gypsies forever?" Kayla Queen, June 4, 2013, 2:37 PM

This was before I was married. A note written to myself in my phone that was somehow saved to the Cloud and transferred to my next two phones before I found it today.

Much of it still remains unanswered, and I realize that I wasn't really sure what I was even saying in those thoughts. However, looking back now, I see the situation much more clearly. I was about to be married, and Kyle and I were anxious to move somewhere else. We were living in Knoxville at the time, and just not feeling it. Looking back now, I think it was a lot of things that pushed us to move. It wasn't the city, or the jobs, or any of the things that one might associate with feeling unsettled in a city. These were the things on which we could have easily blamed our uneasiness, but now, it's clear that it just wasn't meant to be. There was more in store for us to discover elsewhere.

This is also when we first started talking about wanting to do some of the creative things that we are now working toward doing, projects we can't reveal yet but that are constantly being worked and reworked in our hearts. At the time, we just didn't know it was going to be back in West Virginia when those ideas started to take hold. We didn't know then what we know now.

Clearly, I'm a gypsy, but this was when I started feeling the itch to "settle down." And I mean, what is a gypsy anyway?

gyp·sy ˈjipsē - a nomadic or free-spirited person.

I love having the ability to go and move, to be free. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm just never going to settle down. It just means I'm not going to settle. I have too many ideas, too many dreams, to stick with just one thing. But somehow, most of my dreams reflect back onto my heritage, my roots.

My life as the Mountain Gypsy is shifting, which means this blog is shifting. Before I was a blogger, I was a journalism student. Before that, I was on my high school yearbook staff. Before that, I wrote in journals every single day and kept little notebooks of song lyrics and doodles and notes to my friends. At my core, I am a writer, and I am Appalachian. I want Mountain Gypsy to truly reflect those parts of me, the parts that long to show the world the truth and spirit that our people embody.

My heart is a story-teller. My roots are Appalachian.

The Mountain Gypsy I've always envisioned and felt in my bones, but wasn't sure how to produce, is coming forth. In this spring season, it seems fitting that things are beginning to change, and I hope you'll join me for the ride.