Waterfall Road: How I Missed It

For a few years now, I have enjoyed the friendship and encouragement of an artist/writer/dreamer, TJ Worthington, who lived on Waterfall Road in a place called Sparta. We met through Your Daily Creative Practice, a Facebook group founded and managed by visionary artist, Ruth Schowalter of Georgia. I enjoyed TJ’s blog, Waterfall Road, and his … Continue reading “Waterfall Road: How I Missed It”

For a few years now, I have enjoyed the friendship and encouragement of an artist/writer/dreamer, TJ Worthington, who lived on Waterfall Road in a place called Sparta. We met through Your Daily Creative Practice, a Facebook group founded and managed by visionary artist, Ruth Schowalter of Georgia. I enjoyed TJ’s blog, Waterfall Road, and his observations about life in the mountains of North Carolina, and the people and creatures he encountered there.

In my mind, one day, I was going to Carolina to meet him. But on January 4, 2016, TJ died unexpectedly, at home at least, and not in some ICU or ambulance. This poem is a dream of how our meeting might have gone. Perhaps one day, in the stars, it still will.

I often enjoyed his blogs, but his last one, posted Jan. 4, 2016, struck at my heart so.

So does one on the topic of regret, something I am trying to release from my own heart.

Though he lived in the rural mountains, his heart lived in the world. Here is one of his last works of art, called “34” which he posted with lines from the Tao-te-ching:

 

34

I will be there in Sparta on Jan. 23, to read a poem for TJ and to meet his many friends and hear their stories. And who knows, maybe we’ll dance, or play a tune, or sit in the quiet of the woods, and listen.

 

TJ Worthingon, death, memorial, art

Author: Janice

A creative. Lifelong Marylander. After many odd jobs of adolescence and college, have always worked as a writer and published essays, op-eds, articles, and poetry in national news media and small presses. Collection of poetry, "Saturday at the Gym", about boxing, aging, and motherhood; collection of artwork and poetry, "What Are Mothers For?" On the verge of an empty nest for the first time in 30 years, my question is: What am I for?