Kleiner's Blog

As you are reading this I very well may be passing through the Shenandoah River Valley as I make my way down Interstate 81 towards my destination in Nashville Tennessee.  It is likely that as you are considering the Appalachian views I am seeing that I will be thinking of Allentown.  Yes, I promised you that my absence was over and that I would be writing Remember again regularly.

Oops.

No promises today.  Just the beginning of a new story…

Yes, I am on my way to spend Thanksgiving in Music City USA with my Uncle David and family.  Along the way I will see Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountain National Parks but I will not have the time to get inside them.  I do however hope to see the extensive Greenway system Nashville has been establishing throughout its urban corridor and some sister projects in Smyrna and Murphreesboro.

Up there in the first paragraph I said that it would be likely that I would be thinking of Allentown as I made my journey into the South and there is a rather particular reason I said that.  Of late, I have become cognizant of a set of experiences that I would define as the foundations of a life.  That is of course, experiences without suffering the symptoms of my disorder.

When I first began writing Remember, a rare occurrence in a creek was just that sort of experience.  It’s when time slows, when a moment grows and everything you have ever known is frozen.  There is an absence of linear time.  It is incredible. I was able to only find such an experience in Nature up until my most recent intense bout of illness when I began to find such moments in the caring smiles and faces of friends.

These friends are my family and I am so very grateful for them.

“Heading Down South to the Land of the Pines…”

For the six days I am to spend in Nashville Tennessee it is the thoughts of these people that I will keep with me.  This, readers, is a test run.  If I get through this alright, if I don’t get sick, if I return to Allentown on Sunday night and everything was okay – then readers, this is my beginning.

I will go to New York City, Philly and Washington DC next. Then, Yosemite in May, the Everglades and Dry Tortugas in one year.

That is of course, if I remain okay. (fingers crossed)

It is my hope that in sharing this and telling the story of this journey as it happens, that other folks who are like me will find some solace in my openness. It is so very hard to speak openly in the throes of mental paralysis.

Let’s do this. Together.