A Grand Old Time Portal

3/19/24

I'm on my way to a retreat in North Carolina at Kanuga where a board/member cohort member keeps me connected. It's fun to have multiple reasons for being at this “Wild Sanctuary” event led by Simon Ruth DeVoil. In the evenings we will attend “birdsong vespers.”

Often I leave in the afternoon and stop on the way up (more often I do this when driving all the way to Morganton from Pensacola). There's a favorite roadside Airbnb I had discovered for around $65 which has recently tripled in price. I was wondering when that would happen. This time my choices were slim for under $150 and I opted to stop in Hogansville, GA at an old hotel.

The Grand Hotel has a story and today I'm hoping to find out what it is after a peaceful, luxurious and quirky stay here all by myself, quite literally.

I spoke out into the silence of the 135 year old building and to all the eras gone by and all the souls who have been here. I asked them to let me be because I tend to have experiences in places that are new to me where I haven't set up any kind of rooted presence myself. Lessons have been learned (recalling things that make me squirm).

This time, this worked. And I'm glad because there really is something about being in a space that has been around since 1890 and held the lives of so many. When so much is in tact and living in the memories of generations of people, it really is a time portal.

I recall feeling this way living at the Manse in Yorkshire; staring up at the ceiling and the ornate medallion molding around the hanging light, I imagined women in corsets walking the hall to a carriage out front. At the farmhouse in Maggie Valley where we lived, which would be 120 years old now, the images from the past that rose up from the old hardwoods and the front porch included women snapping and stringing beans and worrying about traveling family, telling stories and listening to the crickets start early as their fingers worked. It's always the women I think of.

This beautiful old hotel has seen its share of history. I'm willing to endure the quirks to stay in a space like this and breathe it in. Even the spooky little corners are captivating to me. If I didn't think there were hidden cameras in the public areas I would probably press my face up against the walls and smell them slowly.