Post-Helene Reflections on Solastalgia and Community

This blog post was originally published on April Economides’ Substack.

As we transition into 2025, it’s a natural time to reflect on the past year’s blessings and lessons, both individually and collectively. Top of mind for me personally is the experience of navigating Hurricane Helene as a resident of Asheville’s River Arts District (RAD). In early October, I penned Love Letter to Asheville, an ode to the RAD, which I witnessed destroyed by Helene just two months after moving in. Much has happened over the past three months, and I’m finally resettled enough to share more.

The storm's aftermath is far from over, and every person, neighborhood, and town has its own story. Bodies are still being found, families are still in shelters, some are without electricity amidst freezing temperatures, businesses have closed, and local economies are struggling. Recovery will be the theme of Asheville and Western North Carolina (WNC), as well as parts of Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia for years to come. 

There are also abundant stories of resiliency and hope. The people of Appalachia continue to meet this disaster with characteristic grit and humility – requirements of mountain living but also uniquely Appalachian because of the region’s history of economic hardship and relative isolation; natural beauty, as home to some of the oldest mountains in the world (over 1 billion years); and revered music, crafts, and other storytelling mediums. 

As a newcomer to the area without strong ties, I decided in November to start fresh somewhere new, because the primary reasons I moved to Asheville no longer exist – for example, the majority of my neighborhood. I look forward to visiting frequently en route to my daughter’s college and continuing to aid recovery efforts from afar. 

Before I simply turn my focus to 2025, which is tempting, it feels important to share some of what I experienced over the last few months. I hope my own account helps bring a little more understanding of what it's like to survive a Category 4 disaster in an unsuspecting place, even when you don’t lose it all. Moderate challenges might be less media-sexy than the most extreme, but they’re also more common; and bringing our stories to light helps us better support each other. After all, Helene will be far from the last disaster to strike unexpectedly.

Biophilic playground

It’s hard not to wax poetic about the RAD. I moved there from Greenville, SC, on August 1st for financial and lifestyle reasons and landed a beautiful hilltop apartment. By mid-September, I was settled in, having moved my daughter into college, acclimated my active and social dog, Kaia, landed WNC-specific work contracts, developed new health routines, and made some acquaintances in town. 

The highlight of Kaia’s and my daily life those first weeks was walking the district’s lush river-adjacent greenways, where we’d also visit the weekly farmers market and meet local farmers. We’d admire the riverfront’s colorful shrubs and trees, pollinator gardens, and picnicking families as we jogged along the wide recreational paths, always stopping at the end of our favorite dock to admire the French Broad River, one of a minority of U.S. rivers that flow north. We’d head to the other side of the river to visit Carrier Park and its dog park, meet cute pups and their people, and I’d walk the labyrinth as Kaia plotted squirrel attacks. The juxtaposition of the district’s greenery, railroad tracks and working trains, and historic and industrial mural-adorned buildings is what I loved most about the RAD. It was a beautiful tapestry, and I was in awe of its dynamic composition.

Because we didn’t yet have close friends in town, this creative biophilic playground became our main source of comfort. Arriving onto the path each morning and visiting glassblowers, painters, and potters in the afternoons became our daily ‘hugs,’ so to speak. The Arts District was becoming our home.

Thumbs up

It’s a bit surreal to think back to September 27th, when I awoke in my charming apartment without power and thought not much of it. I just strapped on my headlamp and jogged down my driveway at sunrise to the storage unit, dodging falling branches in the hurricane winds, to dig out my small camp stove and other emergency supplies. I hadn’t fetched them the day before, because the weather alerts didn’t deem it necessary. Back inside, I boiled water and brewed coffee in my French press, as if I was having a temporary little adventure. 

Realizing my loved ones would be worried, though, I snapped a quick photo of myself making a ‘thumbs up’ to show I was safe. Sure, the cell service was spotty and then nonexistent, but it would be back soon, I figured, along with my WiFi so I could jump into my full day of work on my exciting new WNC-focused contract. For now, I sipped my coffee, pet Kaia, and daydreamed about our upcoming hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Little did I know, that hike and work wouldn’t come to fruition, and, in fact, this would be my last feeling of relative normalcy for the next few months. 

Fast forward to today, in late December, and I live in a different apartment, neighborhood, city, and state – in Atlanta, Georgia’s Inman Park, an area I hadn’t even visited prior to November. In October, I rehomed my sweet Kaia, who had become my best friend. I’m in a minor career pivot, having lost my main contract in the hurricane. I’m thousands in the hole after paying for an interstate move, temporary housing, and other unexpected hurricane-related expenses. …Not the WNC Autumn I had envisioned, to say the least. But, as Monty Python famously said, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.” Or, in this case, a Category 4 hurricane to ravage a so-called ‘climate haven.’ 

Not a climate haven

Before Hurricane Helene, Asheville was considered a ‘climate haven’ by many laypersons and sustainability-minded professionals. The city is inland so protected from sea level rise and coastal hurricanes; its location and elevation in the Blue Ridge Mountains shields it from extreme heat; it doesn’t experience the extreme cold of cities further north and in higher elevations; and it has less drought and wildfire risk than the West.

What is now clear is that Asheville has flood risk. Its location at the foot of mountains, alongside the large French Broad River with subsidiaries running through the city, makes it more susceptible to flooding under certain conditions – for example, several days of heavy rainfall followed by a hurricane, which is what happened in September. Helene hit after a precursor storm had already saturated the region with heavy rainfall, filling its rivers. The hurricane then poured on many more inches of rainfall. Devastatingly, the rivers proceeded to rapidly overflow. 

The RAD and other river-adjacent neighborhoods were turned into lakes, even three-story buildings blocks from the French Broad being submerged. Homes and businesses were torn from their foundations and floated down river, massive landslides and flooding ruined roads and other infrastructure, and entire neighborhoods and even towns were destroyed. We weren’t told to evacuate, and many died and thousands lost their homes and businesses, along with their belongings.

This isn’t completely unprecedented. The Great Flood of 1916 killed 80 people, and low-lying parts of Asheville flooded in 2004, which meteorologists called a one-in-100-year event. Helene far exceeded both of these in record rainfall, flooding, death, and overall destruction, though, and is being referred to as a one-in-1,000 year event.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explains that large hurricanes forming in the Gulf tend to cause precursor rain events farther inland, which is when rain shields – heavy rain areas that become heavier as they approach the eye of a hurricane – interact with a cold front. Helene was the second known occurrence of this happening in Asheville, the first being the flood in 1916.

Extreme weather events are nothing new for Earth, a fact both climate change believers and deniers can agree on. Some people think governmental weather modification, which has been around since at least the 1930s, caused Helene’s destruction. Others believe global warming and climate change is behind the increased prevalence and worsening impacts of storms. This NOAA article and study argues the latter about Helene.

The toll in numbers (so far)

Data from Helene is very much still evolving, as this is an active disaster with people still missing and damage still being assessed. But roughly, more than 230 people died across six states, about one-third of them in the Asheville area. More than 577,000 North Carolinians in Helene’s disaster zones lived in mobile homes, were elderly, and/or were disabled.

Over 125,000 homes in WNC were destroyed or majorly damaged – 100,000 in Buncombe County alone (where Asheville is located). More than 22,000 homes in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee combined were destroyed or majorly damaged. Thousands more were minorly damaged. Most damaged homes lack flood insurance. 

More than 1,000 bridges were damaged, over 5,000 miles of roads, and more than 160 sewer systems. Over 2,000 landslides have been recorded. Countless businesses were destroyed, along with many timber and agricultural lands, including many farms. Several small businesses laid off employees or have closed completely. 

Helene is considered the third most devastating hurricane in modern U.S. history, and many local and regional economies will be forever changed. The total economic loss is estimated at over $50 billion. The infrastructure price tag for Asheville alone is estimated at more than $1 billion, with about $5 million for greenways. Tourism revenue in Asheville dropped by an estimated $500 million in Q4. Hurricane Helene damaged one-fifth of the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests.

Water & fatigues

Being without clean running water for two months was undoubtedly the hardest thing to navigate for those of us who didn’t lose loved ones, homes, entire businesses, and/or all of our belongings. Losing a fridge and freezer full of food due to loss of electricity, lacking cell and Internet service for over a month (unable to work from home, make calls, or check the news), and having no trash or recycling service for a month or mail for weeks was a burden. But lacking clean running water for two months (or any running water for the first three weeks to flush toilets) was the most difficult.

Lack of clean running water is a sanitation and health issue, not to mention time-consuming and inconvenient. I would love to live on a homestead one day with well water, laundry lines, and other intentionally set-up amenities. City living requires dependency on others. Both lifestyles have their pros and cons.

The water situation is the main reason so many Asheville residents evacuated our homes, although some returned when the schools reopened one week before citywide water was restored. (Yes, the schools were closed, so parents and kids had a lockdown re-run, but this time also without water at home.) Those who evacuated stayed in their second homes, short-term rentals, with family, or with friends. I was evacuated but returned weekly for 24 hours to water plants, check my mail and apartment’s safety, and fetch personal belongings.

The few people I knew who stayed behind either had wells or showered and laundered at friends’ homes in nearby towns a few times a week. Most people who had to stay for financial reasons (and the few who chose to) learned to sponge-bathe daily, hand-wash clothes, and invest significant time into new routines of boiling water for everything. This was easiest for well-off and two-person households and hardest for single parents, the elderly, and those with disabilities or medical issues. 

After the storm, the City didn’t provide emergency water to residents for days. It had stored its backup water supply entirely on one side of a river – and the side fewest people lived on, its access cut off by the storm. Potable water (and non-potable water for flushing toilets) was finally provided in converted school parking lots with military trucks (from the National Guard, Army Reserve, and other branches) and manned by service members in fatigues. Schools looked like minor military zones, and army trucks drove up and down the streets of Asheville daily en route to various stations. 

After a few weeks, at the same time the City announced non-potable water was running through pipes again, two ‘community care centers’ were set up in the city with shower and laundry trailers, porta potties, and American Red Cross tents for medical assistance. To shower, you’d walk into a gender-specific trailer and enter one of four tiny stalls. The stall doors locked, like in a public restroom. You’d wear flip flops and try not to look at the hair coating the drain. For laundry, you’d wait inside your car or outside in the cold to ensure no one stole your clothes. The five times I used these facilities, I only saw a handful of others, all of them women. 

My first time to the trailers felt a little surreal and humiliating, and I left shaken up. “Just feel grateful,” I told myself, versus half grateful and half ashamed. I didn’t know anyone else personally who had to rely on the trailer, and I’d wish I had a buddy to accompany me. By the second time, I was fine. By the third time, I practically skipped in, just excited for clean, hot running water. But I also noticed the other women there, ranging in age from their 20’s to 70’s, looking shell-shocked and distraught, none of them making eye contact with anyone. 

On my fourth visit, a well-off man in his late 50s walked around gleefully snapping photos, declaring “how wonderful!” the station was. Another woman and I looked at each other, perplexed. “Are you using the amenities or just taking photos?” I asked. “Oh, just checking things out!” he answered excitedly. “I live on the hill and have water.” And as he pointed, we both followed the direction of his stretched-out finger, myself imagining a plush home full of snazzy sweaters and loafers like the ones he was wearing. 

When the non-potable water returned – light brown and reeking of chlorine – the fine print on the City-issued notice had an SNL-like quality to it. I had to do a double-take and could almost hear Chris Farley’s voice reading it aloud: “The water is safe for bathing! *Unless you have open cuts or wounds.” “The water is safe for laundering! *But it might ruin some of your clothes.” An acquaintance said a friend of his tried showering in the water a month after the storm and developed a rash. When I washed a load of off-white bath mats in mid-November, they came out with beige splotches. I can only imagine how hard the engineering crews worked to restore water, and it was stored one month earlier than promised. (They announced late December and then surprised us on November 18th that it was now back on.) But I’m guessing whoever approved that marketing notice was counseled to strike a better balance between optimism and safety next time around, as future notices were less comedic.

Social incohesion

Between most residents having left the city and the daily sight of army trucks, let's just say Asheville felt a whole lot different, especially in my hard-hit neighborhood. I lived on John St., two blocks up from the RAD, two blocks from South French Broad Ave., and two blocks north of Southside. It was an in-between area that I loved pre-storm. Post-Helene, it was sketchy, as it lacked social cohesion and adequate safety. My neighborhood had turned into a ghost town, but the city’s sizable population of mentally ill and drug-using unhoused folks, as well as some prostitutes, were about one-third of the people I now passed on the street. 

A few nights after the hurricane, a mentally ill unhoused person banged on my door repeatedly in the middle of the night, and I was scared they’d break in. Two weeks later, 10 police cars surrounded my property to arrest a neighbor’s boyfriend for domestic violence. The chain smoking neighbors across the street who yelled at their little blind dog had apparently turned into full-fledged alcoholics, yelling louder all day and into the night. When I distributed water to my neighbors, an older stoner hit on me and offered to “watch my house” when I next left town. As a Greenville friend got out of her car to visit me, two men in ski masks drove by, slowed down, and stared at her.

Wasteland

Journalistic pieces stating the RAD is “completely” destroyed are mistaken and harmful to the businesses located on the streets that were spared. These businesses, including several galleries, a few pubs and eateries, a cafe, a music venue, some shops, and a hotel, survived in-tact and need our support. (I have a short piece about this in Vessel magazine’s Winter issue, along with a story on Southern California, which is available for purchase here.) It’s worth noting that it’s possible to visit these higher-elevated streets without seeing the destruction of the lower-lying areas.

What is accurate, though, is that most businesses and galleries were indeed destroyed – and we’re talking hundreds of galleries – along with most buildings, greenways, and some other infrastructure. This was the hardest aspect about coming home weekly. Walking through the RAD’s commercial streets and greenways now felt like a funeral procession, everything dead, collapsed, and brown. The colorful, lively district was now a dusty wasteland. Visitors said it looked like a war zone.

Businesses were gutted with hundreds of black trash bags and loose furniture piled up nearly 10-feet high in every direction. The sidewalks and streets were coated in dried brown dirt. Most trees were brown, either dead or dying, trunks and branches wrapped and draped with litter. Entire buildings were gone. Thankfully, the brick ones remained, albeit emptied of their contents. Streets and sidewalks had large gaping holes, a popular bridge was damaged and closed, and the populated areas with joggers and shoppers were replaced with masked, booted-up shop owners removing debris. Week after week, the destruction never became easier to see, as every week revealed newly discovered damage. It was shocking and deeply saddening, and it felt heavy and depressing to be there. 

There’s no point in sugar-coating it: the devastation is heartbreaking. The last time I walked this stretch, I had to sit or kneel down several times to take it all in. So much beauty just gone in an instant. So much joy, life work, and community along with it. 

Like many beloved artist districts, the RAD was created thoughtfully and lovingly by creatives who also protected it from over-development. It will be interesting to see how this area transforms next. Word on the street is the district’s association, RADA, is in talks with the city and others about rebuilding greener and utilizing climate-adaptive design. And while the surviving businesses and galleries are receiving support from locals and visitors, they need a lot more. This is one reason I look forward to visiting.

Shelter 

When Helene struck, my lack of community in Asheville proved challenging. Longtime residents banded together to share information, resources, supply carpool trips, and offer emotional support – and showering and laundering at friends’ homes in nearby towns with clean running water – while I was figuring things out on my own and managing everything for myself, my dog, and partially also my daughter up in Boone. My independence and resilience kept me from feeling lonely, but most of my time was spent on basic survival needs.

Since our home wasn’t habitable, from late September through mid-November I coordinated a new place to house myself and Kaia each week – where we’d have electricity, cell and Internet service, and clean running water – even hot water, which was now a luxury. Kaia and I drove long distances from Asheville to Atlanta to Charlotte to Boone and other places in between and beyond, never staying anywhere for more than six days at a time.

I had to figure out how to pay for it all after losing most of my income with the hurricane, still pay rent and utilities on my Asheville apartment, and I was doing this while coordinating our new daily necessities, seeking new work, working while evacuated, and ensuring my daughter’s safety after her college closed for weeks.

Solastalgia

Very aware I was a newcomer and much more fortunate than those who lost their lives, families, homes, businesses, belongings, and/or entire towns, I didn’t completely understand why the heaviness of the disaster stuck with me. I’ve weathered more severe (metaphorical) storms and am pretty good at blooming through cracks in the sidewalk.

When I finally took a breather from survival mode to reflect more deeply, I realized it was mostly due to my strong emotional connection to my field of passion: placemaking. Since at least age 15, I’ve felt strongly connected to places, as others might feel only with people. I feel some places very deeply, especially rivers, and I’ve had dreams about them since I was a young kid. These feelings are what lured me into placemaking and community planning in the first place.

Nevertheless, I never researched the emotions of place, as I called it when I typed these words into my search engine two weeks ago for the first time. In doing so, I came across a word that perfectly summarizes the way I feel about the RAD post-Helene: solastalgia.

Coined in 2003 by Australian environmental philosopher, researcher, and professor Glenn A. Albrecht, solastalgia means the homesickness one feels when still at home, caused by distress due to environmental change in one’s home environment. Albrecht describes it like this:

“I define solastalgia as the pain or distress caused by the ongoing loss of solace and the sense of desolation connected to the present state of one’s home and territory. It is the existential and ‘lived experience’ of negative environmental change, manifest as an attack on one’s sense of place. It is … a feeling of distress, or psychological desolation, about its unwanted transformation. In direct contrast to the dislocated spatial dimensions of traditionally defined nostalgia, solastalgia is the homesickness you have when you are still located within your home environment. Solastalgia is derived from the words; solace, desolation, nostalgia and algia or pain/sorrow.

…A person, or a landscape, might give solace, strength or support to other people. Special environments might provide solace for those looking for consolation. If a person lacks solace, then they are distressed and in need of consolation. If a person seeks solace or solitude in a much-loved place that is being desolated, then they will suffer distress. The word “desolation” has its origins in the Latin solus (noun desolare), with meanings connected to devastation, deprivation of comfort, abandonment and loneliness (to be solitary or alone). It also has meanings that relate to both psychological and physical contexts … a personal feeling of abandonment (isolation), and to a landscape or structure that has been devastated.

…Solastalgia has its origins in solacium (solace) and algos (suffering, sorrow, grief, or pain) and has a ghost reference and structural similarity to nostalgia (nostos) to give a place reference.”

Reading this was a huge exhale, as it named what I was feeling. It put a border around the puzzle pieces in my mind. It’s a word I wish we didn’t need, but unfortunately, we do. It personally brought me so much comfort that my mild trauma from the last few months dissipated within days. I hope sharing this brings comfort to other Helene survivors, as well. Thank you, Dr. Albrecht, for this addition to the English language.

During this same week, I attended my first yoga class in three months. (I typically attend weekly.) As I slowly descended into pigeon pose, and the teacher walked over and put her open palms on my back and gently pushed down, I started crying quietly even though my practice up until that point was strong and joyful. Unbeknownst to me, the emotions had been right under the surface, just waiting to be released. It was her touching me that brought them out. 

I instantly recognized the emotions as stress, grief, and loneliness. It had been two weeks since I moved into my new apartment solo, and it was the first time someone else touched me in over a week, except for a handshake a few nights prior. My tough shell had been instantly shattered by a soft support. As usual, I had been carrying more than I realized. Also as usual, I needed others more than I was letting them in.

FEMA inefficacy

A large part of my stress was financial, and FEMA aid never came through as promised. Although I spent the majority of my time trying to land new earned income, not receive aid, I’m disappointed I never received the $750 in “immediate emergency aid” allocated for all eligible applicants, or FEMA assistance for rent, hotel stays, or other hurricane-related expenses. I’m far from alone. So many eligible applicants were rejected that, in Asheville alone, several workshops were held by a law firm on how to properly appeal rejection. 

Despite following all procedures correctly, many of us experienced failures through FEMA’s online form, dismissive phone attendants, and patronizing employees during in-person visits to the Asheville pop-up ‘help’ station. The core problems were policy-related, which employees are forced to follow. A manager told me there’s a backlog of rejected residents, mostly renters, and appeals can take months to review. I asked why proof of my residential address – clearly printed on my driver's license, apartment lease, electrical bill, and signed landlord letter, all uploaded to my account and in-hand – didn’t suffice. “That’s just not the process,” she said. Feels like an institutional charade, I thought.

While I’m sure there are instances of FEMA doing something well, unfortunately, I’ve only heard stories from reasonable people I know describing the opposite, in regards to both individual and institutional aid. Seeing passionate outsiders defend FEMA on social media lands flat for those of us on the ground. So do Google searches around how to secure FEMA help, which primarily focus on defending the agency’s efficacy. 

FEMA clearly needs an overhaul. We citizens pay the salaries of more than 20,000 employees, as well as the emergency aid that many of us never receive. I’m mostly upset about this for ethical reasons. I think this is something capitalists and socialists can agree on.

Carried by community

That my little family is okay is in no small part to the generosity of friends and family who helped carry us through a challenging time, as well as the kindness of strangers – such as the Mast General Store clerk who, while petting Kaia one evening in mid-November, invited me to her family’s home for dinner, a hot shower, and laundry. While I wasn’t able to take her up on it, it meant the world and we still check in on each other.

Our first lifeline was the incredible generosity of a few loved ones who sent money upon our evacuation without first asking, knowing I would refuse it, including my parents, Irish uncle, a friend from high school, and a friend from my recent Long Beach days. It paid for our first week in a short-term rental and hotel, fuel, food, water, and other expenses. My high school friend hadn’t seen me in years, yet she reached out as if it was yesterday. When I attempted to return her financial gift, she refused it and just sent more words of support and love, understanding my situation as if it was her own and also understanding better than me how much I needed the help. I think about her almost every day, still in awe of what she did. I think about my other friend too and how, even though her gift was much smaller in size, how I teared up just as much when receiving it due to the same love behind it.

Our second safety net was the friends who offered us a place to stay, even distant acquaintances and those in small apartments. I wasn’t able to accept their generous offers, because Kaia wasn’t safe to cohabitate with cats or most dogs, as she had become occasionally aggressive after being attacked a month prior by a homeless man’s dog.

We ended up staying with a buddy from college who insisted Kaia and I stay with him and his family by taking over their basement apartment, where we’d have our own large room, bathroom, and entrance. They live in a suburb 45 minutes northeast of Atlanta. He and his incredible wife even offered to provide our meals and pay for the second week of boarding I set up for Kaia at a local farm. They both work-from-home and parent two teenage boys, yet they hosted us as if it was no inconvenience and went out of their way to make us feel at home.

We stayed with them on-and-off for over a month, and the consistency of having a place to live to for that amount of time was a godsend. The morning I moved out in early November, I felt so overwhelmed and grateful for their selflessness I couldn’t get words of appreciation out without breaking down crying. So many of us hold so much in when we’re stressed, and then it comes out at inconvenient times. No one else cares but us.

In October, Kaia and I also spent a few nights in Statesville, NC, to test out my top-choice couple who wanted to adopt her. Rehoming my sweet girl is a story in itself, but suffice it to say, although shocked and heartbroken at having to give her up, it was the right hard decision to make, and she’s thriving. I transitioned her into her new home gradually and intentionally, and I regularly receive comforting photos of her playing with their granddaughter and other dogs.

After I rehomed my baby, I headed to Hambidge Center in Upstate Georgia, where I’d been accepted into a one-week writing residency. The off-grid time in nature allowed me space to process some of my emotions about Kaia’s rehoming as well as the hurricane. Because my residency was during Election Week, I also processed thoughts around that and wrote A Call To Common Ground. 

While at Hambidge, a close Greenville friend generously volunteered to make the two-hour round trip drive to Asheville to water my plants (bringing water with her in buckets) so I wouldn’t have to make an additional interstate drive. She was also the main person I spent my long drives talking to and with whom I painted the town red on my last night in Asheville. 

Ironically, I made my first real friend in Asheville just three weeks before I moved, but I’ll still get to see him when I visit the city. His encouragement about Atlanta gave me a positive boost on a day I was feeling deflated, and it refocused me to ‘carpe the diem,’ as I like to say. I found my charming apartment later that afternoon. He also took time away from his hectic schedule to help me move several pieces of large furniture into a U-Haul before I drove them to a Boone storage unit for my daughter. I had only one week in Asheville to pack up, move out, and head to Atlanta and it would have felt pretty lonely without his encouragement.

There are stories of other friends and family near and far who offered words of comfort or financial help, and every gesture felt huge. Their support means more to me than they realize. If you’re reading this, thank you.

From AVL to ATL

It wasn’t until late October that I realized I needed to move. I had been too deep in daily survival mode to see the big picture. It was also hard to wrap my head around moving again, just months after having done so. Yet, there was nowhere else in the Carolinas where I had friends and that felt both homey and practical.

In Atlanta, however, I had several friends and was making new connections easily. It’s the most diverse, walkable, bikeable, tree-laden, friendly, and dynamic place I had visited since moving to the Southeast in June 2022. Hiking spots are closeby in Northern Georgia and even just outside the city. If a hurricane hits, the city has a large and diverse economy so my finances will be safer. Furthermore, some neighborhoods allow for a car-light lifestyle, are near multi-use paths and a diversity of amenities, and have reasonable rent. It seemed like a happy place to get back on my feet. 

After exploring the city, I landed my top-choice rental in my first-choice neighborhood. While I can’t predict the future, I do feel good that I made the best decision at my disposal. The rest is out of my hands.

Moving to The ATL, Hotlanta, the Empire City of the South, The Big Peach – pick your nickname – has, so far, been a pleasant surprise. I’ll let it slide that the city’s name was misspelled in 1897 with a missing ‘a.’ (The correct name spelling is actually “Atalanta” after the Greek goddess huntress who defied gender stereotypes.)

Onward

My story is but one of thousands, and far from the most severe. That’s partially my point in writing this. I lost income and savings, my dog, neighborhood, plans for a certain life, and I’m starting over in many ways. Still, I not only feel extremely fortunate compared to those who lost so much more, I’m also happy and at peace. 

It’s undeniable that weathering storms, whether real or metaphorical, builds our gratitude and perspective for what we do have. It also deepens our understanding and empathy for what other people go through, enabling us to be more supportive.

I’m ending 2024 with a big THANK YOU across my heart for everyone who helped me and my little family as well as everyone who is still navigating the effects of Helene. I’m eager to return to Asheville in two weeks to hug my new friends and support local businesses. Overall, I feel hopeful for 2025. 

I’d feel remiss not to mention that I’m also ending 2024 by writing this one day after the passing of beloved former President Jimmy Carter, whose presidential library is only one block from my new home. I’m also grateful to live a short walk from Ebenezer Baptist Church and Dr. King’s birth home. 

Today, as I wished one of my dear college friends Happy Birthday, I also reflected on his sweet father, who offered me financial help after the storm, despite having not seen me in years. Although I didn’t accept his offer, he’ll never know how often I think of him, in gratitude. His kind gesture carried me through, because it’s the loving intention behind such acts that matters most.

These are the 2024 memories and realizations I’m most taking with me into the new year. And also how it’s funny that we often think about people who never know we’re thinking about them. Let’s make it a point to tell them in 2025.

Happy New Year, friends.