Baptism by flooding
an ode to the South Toe
Even before my parents retired on the South Toe River, we’d head up to North Carolina and spend the Fourth of July with family. When you’re a child of divorce, holidays can be tough, but Fourth of July was easy; my mother had no attachment to the “holiday” (unpatriotic before it was cool humble brag) and when my dad and my stepmom got married on the 3rd of July (Happy 23rd Anniversary yall!) it became our family’s holiday.
The only Fourth of July memory I have before their union was when Katelyn and I made twin Build-A-Bears named Summer Hope and Autumn Faith Navy at the new Opry Mills Mall. First names inspired by a girl in our fourth grade class, middle names inspired by our love of Christ, and last name inspired by the store Old Navy…
It should also be said that in fourth grade, I told Katelyn I could talk to dogs. Not to animals, just dogs. I was wearing a lilac nightgown from The Disney Store that had the faces of Belle, Jasmine, Cinderella, and Aurora embroidered on the front. I distinctly remember us walking the track as 9-year-olds discussing the girl whom we would end up naming a bear after, that it was quite sad she wasn’t as realized as we were. An interesting way for two girls to combat popularity and insecurity. However, as someone who still wears a nightgown in public (and lowkey can talk to dogs), we were rather realized for fourth graders.
Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter were little anxiety attacks. I knew my good time at one house would come to an end, only to have a good time at the next house that I knew would also come to an end. Even now, I’m filled with a little existential dread, feeling like I should be in two places at once; wanting it, even.
But the Fourth was different. It was just my dad’s. I didn’t have to be anywhere else except for where I was. And for over a decade, that place has been North Carolina. And because of Hurricane Helene, it’s not this year.
Once I explained my parent’s little North Carolina town to Meredith as an artist’s community. She imagined a commune, which is wrong, but at the same time, a little right. My dad was the president of their street, Sully Lane, and they would flora and fauna together, and lend yard equipment, and watch out for each other. Technically, their town was Burnsville, but right next to it Celo and to the right of that, Micaville, which has a much better name to it, don’t you think? At about a 5.5/6 hour drive, it was the time every year I’d flip through the five CD wallets I keep in my car and jam out to old mixes I made or my high school crushes burned and let nostalgia run over me like the cool river I was about to jump in.
Sometimes the whole family would come, sometimes I’d bring a friend. We’d grill out, and float down the river, and play card games. I wouldn’t wash my hair once; the river did that. There was a joke growing up that I brushed my hair once a day, no more, no less. At the river, I don’t think I brushed my hair at all. There was the infamous summer three years ago when Meredith came and I was obsessed with if Jimmy Buffett was referring to Heinz 57 steak sauce or the ketchup on his Cheeseburger in Paradise. A couple of weeks later, Meredith and I would be in London asking strangers and friends alike what they thought, but that weekend we interviewed every guest at the 50+ party where we were all in Hawaiian shirts, unwilling and unwanting to wear red, white, or blue. We’d talk about what our paradise looked like as we walked past the tree where we placed heart-shaped rocks at my aunt and uncle’s house, and then run the rest of the way into the water. The question still lingers. I think Buffett liked his with ketchup.
When I’d arrive at the river house, I’d hug my dad and Dorothy’s neck and be greeted with a sweet of some kind and Scrabble set up on the back deck’s patio, the river babbling below. I’d head downstairs, where our bedrooms were as well as the library (“library”) and the living room with the TV, to freshen up, and see what stuffed animals my dad had placed on the bed. This was a bit that was important to us. Sometimes it was an American Girl Doll ™, but speaking of Build-a-Bear, Bailey worked there in high school, so most of the time it was a random bear we had from growing up. The Grinch was popular, as well as a monkey that was used as a prop when we were gifted Costa Rica one Christmas for Spring Break, or a bear we made for my grandma with a sunflower hat.
The bit that was very important to us was my dad setting up a Staff Picks selection of books on my dresser. He’d typically include one book he wanted me to read, two of my favorites from growing up, and then two books he knew made me mad. (Notably, Where the Crawdads Sing). This week by the river was essential in meeting my 100-book goal every year. I’d read at least a book a day, if not one and a half.
The summer Meredith came, and she quickly saw it was not a commune, she likened the town to Stars Hollow. Burnsville/Celo/Micaville had a big rush of artists come in the 60s. Penland School of Crafts is there, a fairly famous arts and crafts school that cultivated the culture in the surrounding area. I loved walking the town and seeing the old hippies and artists integrated with the right side, perhaps gun-toting crowd.
My parents thrived in this community. They were a part of a dance club, they would attend contra dances, they would drag me to said contra dances where I would beg and whimper to leave. They were a part of a supper club, and they stood up to their church when they didn’t stand up for the values they believed in. My parents would serve those who couldn’t help themselves. Last summer, my dad and I protested to save the funding for their library after a townsperson was offended by a selection of books that were displayed for Pride. (That library has since disbanded from the county, cutting off tons of resources for their community. A sick sign of the bad to come.) My dad cleaned up the Appalachian Trail. My dad played softball in the spring and summer and shot hoops at the park in the fall and winter. Dorothy played pickleball with friends. I’d come in January to sled with my dad in the fresh snow. And I would come in July and dive into the cold South Toe.
Last September, I was overwhelmed. I was experiencing heartache (lol wuts new boo) and Margaret 1 and I, for the first time in our 20+ year friendship, were tiffing. I was overbooked with improv and I wasn’t sleeping. And then Hurricane Helene hit, and the river where our house sat began to rise.
September, Thursday the 26th, our parents texted us that the water was at bay, but that electricity might go out. Friday, we heard nothing. Saturday, when we still heard nothing, panic set in. Bailey and Scott searched Facebook for updates. I watched TikTok after TikTok of water rushing the roads I was so familiar. The river had never been so high, not even during the 100-year flood. On Sunday, after still no word but our parents, I felt whatever type of invisible tether I shared with my dad break.
I sat numb on my couch, my house full of people because, of course, comedy and tragedy go hand in hand. Rachel was moving all of her belongings from the home she shared with her ex into my outdoor shed, joined by her inner circle of friends, Meredith included. Ben had just moved in for the month for a writing gig that was meeting in person. I had been watching my ex-situationship’s dog, and he’d gotten back in town and sat cross-legged on my floor. Carly, Anna Grace, and Ben rushed over after they returned from a funeral back home. And there we all sat in chaos while I waited for any type of pull on mine and my dad’s tether.
On Monday, we received a call from a guy in Asheville whom my dad had given a ride in his truck. I sobbed in relief and laughed that, of course, we were contacted by a hitchhiker of sorts. It reminded me of the casualness he possessed when he was the last parent to pick up their child from school on 9/11, walking in, whistling a Warren Zevon tune like the world wasn’t on fire. Giving a ride to a boy on a bike like his interior world hadn’t just flooded.
We’d receive a text later that day from one of their neighbors that our parents were okay. That they saw Dorothy laying out photos and memory boxes in hopes of drying. This hurts more than I can still bear.
We’d receive a FaceTime call from them on Tuesday after a Starlink station was put up at the local elementary school. We all cried and then laughed as my niece kept saying “Hi Daddy!” into the camera.
We’d see them a week later, unshowered and exhausted. The bottom floor of our home had been completely submerged under water, and while my dad gutted the walls, Dorothy made the difficult decisions of what mementos could be salvaged. All the Build-A-Bears ravaged. The Staff Picks I hated completely submerged under water.
When I was thirteen, we painted my new bedroom lilac. We went to Bed Bath and Beyond, and I picked out a comforter of blues, purples, and greens that resembled a patchwork quilt. “It’s too expensive,” my dad said.
My dad getting remarried had been particularly hard on me. Gaining siblings when I had been an only child, sharing my dad, who had only been mine, a challenge. I begged, I pleaded, I cried in the aisles. This was very unlike me; I was used to being told no because something was too expensive, but this broke me. “I will take this to college! This will be my marriage quilt!” I screamed. I had been reading a lot of Little House on the Prairie. For the first and I think last time, my dad bought me something that cost more than he wanted to spend.
That blanket was ruined in the flood.
There’s a photo of my dad that haunts me. He’s stone faced, not wanting his photograph taken, covered in mud, our things behind him, covered in mud too. It looks like a war zone, I thought. Like a third world country, I thought. Then, disgusted with myself for likening climate change tragedy to two things I’d never experienced. Never even seen.
My dad and Dorothy moved back to Nashville in October. While they cleaned and cleared out the river house, I kept their cat Felix, who I believed possessed my Opa’s spirit. It was nice having him there, stomping around in the house that was made possible by my grandparent’s lasting generosity. A home filled with mementos and photos from their travels. A home, if flooding, I’d race and grab my Oma’s Swarovski crystals first: her collection of whimsical woodland creatures with gemstone eyes.
My dad told me they were selling the river house on a mild February night while we were on Broadway headed to see a yacht rock cover band at The Ryman. I cried while jokingly wearing a fedora while my dad jokingly wore a Hawaiian shirt.
“I can’t see this not happening again, Andrea,” he said, serious and biting back tears. Since the flood, my dad cried every time I saw him. Once he cried, talking to the cat while fixing my toilet. “We’re not going back there, Felix,” he said while the cat meowed at him. “I’m sorry, I’ll miss seeing the mica sparkle from sunlight on your fur, too,” he said, the lump in his throat so heavy it broke his speech pattern. (This is not me being poetic and putting words in my father’s mouth by the way, this is an exact quote he said to the cat.)
“We’re killing our planet,” he said. “How can it not happen again?” My dad loves recycling. He loved composting. He loved submerging himself in the cold South Toe after gardening. The South Toe is still not safe to swim in; it’s worse than the Harpeth.
It’s a good thing my parents are back. Our family gets together more, the driving distances not as far. And not just holidays, it’s a Tuesday night dinner when I have nowhere else I have or want to be. They live within walking distance of my nephew and niece. My dad has found renewed purpose in coming over once a week and helping me with yardwork. We listen to records and contemplate sneaking into my neighbor's pool. He joined a softball team.
But the tradition of not hopping in my car early in the morning, flipping through my CD wallets and selecting “Seaside Bound” or “Scott’s Indian Giver mix” (it was a different time) hits me like a ton of bricks; much like listening to Brick by Ben Folds Five, which is on that mixed CD.
I miss chasing fireflies with my family at my aunt and uncle’s house. I miss dancing to 50s music with my dad at the community center. I miss the feeling of being born again, a baptism of sorts, the moment my head hit the icy water of the South Toe. I really miss the Staff Picks.
But my dad came over to weed whack yesterday, and while we listened to the B side of Graceland, I told him about my bad date on Saturday. The date had asked me to dance, I said no and then went on my diatribe of how dancing was too vulnerable, exposing, even. When the date asked again if there was anything he could do to change my mind, I told him how I cried while contra dancing. When the date asked if I’d mind him dancing with other girls, I told him of course not, and I told my dad how I snuck out of the bar while he danced with someone much more willing to reveal themself.
This weekend our family will be together and we’ll eat my dad's famous ribs. We’ll be in the town we grew up in, in a house that isn’t quite familiar. Dorothy will have something sweet on the table when I walk in. There’s a neighborhood pool I can jump into; I can baptize myself in new traditions.
What I’ve been consuming in a heat wave:
The Hunger Game prequels
Bizzy cold brew
Sue Me by Audrey Hobert
Bowling Alley by Audrey Hobert
texts inviting me to the pool
hamburgers
SENTENCE MUSEUM