In The Mountains

Something unusual happened when we recently took a last-minute trip to Banner Elk, North Carolina to escape the Florida heat.  We expected quiet mornings, cool evenings, and a chance to recharge. Instead, during the six days in the North Carolina mountains, Brent and I socialized more than we had in the previous six months! We certainly hadn’t planned it that way. But we found ourselves spending time with friends and neighbors at nearly every turn.

It started when Brent’s friend from Spartanburg stayed with us for a couple of days. The guys played golf, and we shared some great meals. One evening, we had dinner with a girlfriend I adore but rarely see back home, someone I’d fallen out of touch with for nearly a decade before we recently reconnected. That night, she invited us to join her at an ELO tribute band concert, which is not exactly something I would have pictured myself doing in South Florida, but somehow, in the auditorium at Lees-McRae College in downtown Banner Elk it was perfect.

Two days later, another couple I’ve known for decades but never really spent much time with in Martin County invited us for cocktails at their spectacular new mountain home, perched 5,500 feet above sea level.  We sat leisurely on their deck, laughing and swapping stories about local politics before heading to dinner together at a restaurant that boasted the most stunning long-range views of the Tennessee Mountains.

The next day Brent played golf with a different couple who live less than a five-minute walk from our home in Mariner Cay in Stuart, and then the four of us had a lovely, casual dinner together getting to know one another.

Somewhere during that week, I found myself wondering: how can we live so close to all these people and rarely see them, yet when we find ourselves hundreds of miles away in the same mountain town, dinner plans suddenly become irresistible?

Part of the answer, I think, is that life at home runs on autopilot. We settle into routines that feel permanent. There will always be another Friday night, another weekend, another chance to call that friend or make plans with the neighbors. Work fills the calendar, errands fill the spaces in between and weeks quietly turn into months.

Being away changes the equation.

When you’re on vacation, time suddenly feels finite. You know exactly how many sunsets you have left. At the same time, the routines that normally consume us disappear. There are no piles of mail waiting on the counter, no endless to-do lists, no appointments squeezed between meetings. There's space for an extra cup of coffee, an unhurried dinner, or a conversation that stretches long after the check has been paid.

And then there’s the odd little magic of finding people from home in an entirely different world.

Banner Elk couldn’t be more different from Martin County. The mountains, the weather, and the slower pace of life, even the culture feel worlds apart. Yet somehow, scattered across those mountains were lots of familiar faces from our own quirky corner of Florida.

There’s something comforting about that. In a time when so much of our interaction takes place through screens, text messages and social media posts, running into people who share your hometown feels different. It’s a reminder that community still exists beyond Facebook comments and political arguments. There is comfort in shared history and the commonality that comes from knowing someone is from the same place you call home.