This must be the place: Ode to Asheville, ode to the good people of WNC

A&E Columns

This must be the place: Ode to Asheville, ode to the good people of WNC

The back of Chai Pani in downtown Asheville. Garret K. Woodward photo

It was quiet, so damn quiet. Wednesday evening. Myself flying solo, exiting Interstate 240, merging onto Patton Avenue and rolling into the heart of downtown Asheville. No traffic. No cars. No people. It was odd.

Parking at the Otis Street garage, the new sign said “Free,” to make note of the fact you can pull up and put your vehicle there at no charge. Normally, it’d be hard to actually find a spot at that high-demand parking structure, but not on this day. Shit, I even got a prime real estate spot within a moment of entering the facility.

Exit the vehicle. An eerie silence swirled through the city, much like the cold fall breeze ricocheting between buildings of numerous floors surrounding the garage. Again, no people. Just me and my trusty book under my arm as I made my way back down to Patton, onward to Red Ginger Dimsum & Tapas.

Walk up. Walk in. Immediately seated. Order the pork dumplings (Shanghai style) and spicy chicken, a cold Sapporo to boot. When the beverage arrived, I took a sip and gazed around the establishment, my eyes slowly shifting to Patton Avenue. At that moment, I realized it was my first meal in the city since the flood.

Two months and a handful of days since Hurricane Helene ravaged through our backyard of Western North Carolina. Our homes and our lives were dismantled, our friends’ homes and their lives, too. It’s been a whirlwind of emotions and actions and will remain so for the foreseeable future — not months from now, but years and decades.

A few more sips into the Sapporo and I think of all the flood victims I’ve crossed paths with, interviewed and written about this past fall into the impending winter. Their daily existence bulldozed. Rollercoaster of feelings and experiences, mostly surreal and imaginable. Their heartfelt words and heavy tears, new fears and new realities. You soak in all of these things and try to make sense of it on the unwritten page for your readers.

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I think of the first time I found myself at Red Ginger. Summer 2012. I’d just relocated to this area from my native Upstate New York. I was 27 years old and the new arts/features editor for this publication. I sat alone and sipped a Sapporo, wondering just what was lying just around the corner of not only that physical building, but also of my intrinsic intent of emergence into that fresh chapter.

Skip ahead a decade and two years. I again sit alone, but there’s an incredible woman awaiting my return to our humble abode. She wanted to stay home tonight, myself eager to see some live music in the city. Eat my pork dumplings (Shanghai style) and spicy chicken, all the while pondering the line in the sands of time that was pre-Helene and post-Helene — where to from here?

Park across the street from Eulogy and make my way inside, but not before noticing the brightly-lit Chai Pani restaurant radiating out into the cold night, this beacon of commerce and culture in a city darkened by personal unknowns and professional closures. Familiar businesses disappearing on a daily basis. Familiar faces leaving town for higher ground, literally and financially.

Word of Wicked Weed’s Funkatorium and sister operation next door, Cultura, in South Slope closing its doors. I’ve also heard the same about Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria on Biltmore Avenue, an iconic anchor business for the city of Asheville when many folks weren’t taking much of a chance on downtown back in the 1990s.

Add to that the countless other WNC businesses now erased from the Google maps for locals and visitors alike wandering our beloved area, many of which I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing over the years, countless stories about their hopes, dreams and legacies.

A few days later, I found myself back at Eulogy, this time to attend the Big Something flood benefit. A wildly popular jam-rock act out of Burlington, North Carolina, Asheville and its music freak vibe has become something of a second home for the ensemble. And there I was, asked by the band if I wanted to get onstage and say a few words about the flood and recovery to the raucous audience.

Grabbing the microphone, the stage lights were blinding as I tried to make out the faces in the audience. This sea of excited expressions. I told them how beautiful of a crowd they were and how great it was to be in the presence of live music again in Asheville after such a long period of radio silence. I sincerely meant what I said. And they howled in unison to my sentiment.

“Since late September, I’ve been interviewing flood victims and driving around our region,” I said. “And however bad you think the situation is, it’s worse, much worse.”

I spoke of the small mountain towns that orbit Asheville, forever altered by Helene: Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Hot Springs, Marshall, Swannanoa, Canton, Waynesville, Black Mountain, Bethel, Cruso and so on. The work will continue, even if the help from the outside dries up. We’ll rebuild and do so in due time.

Earlier in the day leading up to the Eulogy gig, Big Something hosted a cleanup effort, with fans of the group showing up to volunteer and lend a hand. I asked the audience to raise their hands if they helped in the cleanup: one-third of the crowd raised their hands. I asked them to raise their hands if they were directly affected by the flood: half of the audience raised their hands.

Then, I asked them to raise their hands if they knew someone directly affected by the flood: every single person of the sold-out crowd of hundreds raised their hands. I told the audience to look around and acknowledge their neighbors and how we’re all going through something so horrendous and traumatic, but together and with compassion.

“I remain an eternal optimist. Someday we’ll not only return to normalcy, we’re going to come back better and stronger than ever,” I finished up by saying, the crowd roaring in solidarity at the moment unfolding in real time. “And I truly believe that.”

Life is beautiful, grasp for it, y’all.

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