mary

mary.

zach and i went to mary’s cozy house on a cold day in december before a big snow. mary is known and loved by many in asheville. she radiates this calm cool southern loveliness & charm you can’t help but be drawn to, so it is no surprise she has collected such an array of friends across all types.

we talk to her about how she found her true self, how she reconnects to that true self, and how she tries to push herself to be more aware and impactful - both inwardly and outwardly. she has nothing bad to say about anyone, and uses her mature southern drawl for only the good things. get to know mary — full audio above, bits below.

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mary speaks about her project spirit savvy: 

what really drew me to it was the intention that went behind a craft cocktail. it’s about quality, not quantity. over a really well made cocktail you could connect with people, and that’s really what i am about. i’m about people connecting with each other. and this was a good avenue. 

what is your drink of choice? 

really the simpler the better. if it’s a little too frou frou it kinda makes me tired. i like to be able to taste the spirit, definitely. lately i have just been drinking bourbon, neat - and that’s just fine too. 

do you have a certain kind of glass you prefer? 

i think that is really important. i guess it depends on which cocktail, but i don’t like heavy glasses. i like real light, kinda fine. coups! i make a mess i get a little sticky after a night of manhattans. i tried to drink manhattans when they used to do that dance party at the admiral, and i came home just covered in vermouth. 

what drives you nuts? 

people not using the proper form of lay and lie. i grew up with my mother saying “you lay a pencil down and it lies there.” you can lay your body down, but you lie down. being a yoga teacher it drives me crazy when they say, “everybody lay down” 

and people that use the royal we. when a server or bartender comes up and says, “what are we having tonight?” i immediately think that person is going to join us for a drink, but they’re not. 

speaking about the current status of our world.

i think we are all losing our connection with each other and the earth, and we are just all living in our heads a little bit.

my unofficial motto is: we are all connected and we need to act like it. we are ALL connected. that is important to me, and i feel like we are in the state we are in because we are losing that connection with each other. 

how do you think we find it again? 

i don’t know it needs to be pretty intentional, and i don’t know if we are all up for it. i had thought about, before trump got elected, thinking of course hillary was going to win, i thought of starting these community conversations where we all would get together, people of different political persuasions, and really talk to each other. we would have a fact checker there, and just see what we all have in common. i think right now we are really focused on how we differ. it’s gotten worse. but i feel like everything seeks equilibrium and i think we have swung this way and back the other way, and i think - hopefully without a huge rumble - we are going to get back to where we are listening to each other again. 

what are you learning or working on right now? 

i just turned 50 so i feel like i really need to settle into how i want to live these next 50 years, or however long. my midlife awakening, what that looks like for me. i’ve started meditating and journaling because that gets be back to my true self. and when you are connected to your self you get into a flow. so i need to get back to that. i’ve been floating a little lately. 

what trait do you dislike in yourself? 

just one? i think i get paralyzed a little bit by fear. and that keeps me from moving forward when i should just plow through. i need to be better about that. self doubt. 

what about others? if you are constantly trying to connect with others what are things that come up that really make you disengage and not want to connect anymore? 

you know, i don’t know. i usually can find a way to connect with people. 

what traits do you love in people? when are little moments that make you really happy seeing another person live?

i love people that are doing what they are passionate about. i love being around that. 

yesterday i had the privilege of going to the haywood street congregation. its a church for any and all walks of life, but its for people that are homeless and kinda down on their luck. restaurants come in and cook for these people. they probably fed 400 or 500 people yesterday, it is amazing. they are doing such a great service for these people. i went to the service after, and what i realized is that we are connecting with those people. we are stepping over them on the street. — i say we, i am using the royal we! but we are! and i am. so that is what i am going to work on, being more of service to people that i wouldn’t normally connect with. i just realized we were all sitting in that church, and we are all broken, and we are all just people. 

what is asheville missing? what does it need?

a good chinese restaurant. i really like the people in asheville. i like how it is big enough but also small enough, you are always seeing people that you know and i think people take care of each other. i am grateful for the community of people, but i don’t know. affordable housing, more people of color. it’s pretty white here. so…yeah 

what is one small thing that is abnormally special to you? 

i like beauty. so i like flowers in the house, that’s special to me. and i really appreciate my yoga practice. i can be in whatever shape, and i can go there and press the reset button. if i am being bad do my body, which i can do - easily. 

what would you say is undeniably you? 

maybe my voice? the way i talk. my twang! i talk like my mother, so it’s really not my twang it’s hers. 

if there was a new two dollar bill, whose face should be on it? 

well i was a fan of harriet tubman. i think the future is female and i also think the future is black, and we need to start paying attention. 

what does your ideal birthday look like? 

it was the one i just had. i love to dance, and i just think really good music, dancin and good food — and of course all of the beverages. 
what is feeding you right now? what is giving you life? 

my boyfriend lives in knoxville and they have great public radio so when i drive back i listen to on being. my yoga practice - i have to have that. my ceremony in the morning making coffee reading the new york times — on my phone — with my glasses as close to my face as possible. i can’t see anymore, or hear, so i make a great bartender. 

what brings you happiness? 

being connected to my true self…just that little thing. 

how did you find your true self? 

what brings me back is journaling and meditating, that really gets me back to me. 

when do you think it clicked for you, growing up when did it click like, ‘oh, this is me.’

i think when i moved out west. i got married right after college, and immediately had kids, we moved to a navajo reservation - my husband at the time was a teacher, so he had this opportunity to do that. we thought, “oh this will be like the peace corps, this will be a little two year thing..” but it was no joke out there, and they didn’t necessarily want us to be there. understandably so, but i was naive at the time. i thought we were going to go there, and you know bring whatever we could bring to the natives and they would appreciate it. no. it was pretty desolate out there, so i started running. i think that helped me build some confidence. getting my body real strong. 

we moved out to napa. again, very naive. yeah, let’s move a family of four out to napa valley because i like wine. and its my turn to pick where we live. all my friends from college lived out in san francisco. i thought i would be able to go visit my friends. but we made it work. it was the best thing i ever did. so getting out there, out of the shade of the family tree, finding my own way. being out west was really good for me. that was really where i first got connected to my flow. 

what was one of the hardest times of your life? the most difficult? 

i think college. i hate to say that because i made my dear friends that i’ll have forever, but it was just tough. i was just lost. i went from being a really good student to being a terrible student. and at chapel hill they didn’t care if you went to class or not, and i just wasn’t mature enough to handle all that. i was just a little bit lost in college. 

what are you proud of? 

i’m really proud of my children, they have taught me a lot. i have two, they are 25 and 22. lovely kids. they are both musicians, something i am not. i really appreciate that and them. they took a different path, they didn’t go to college right away. but they have this wonderful outlet they can always fall back on. they have done great things for their music, for how old they are definitely. 

what do you look forward to in these next 50 years? 

i really want to travel some more. i love italy but i feel like i have to go places i haven’t been so my next wish is going to spain. barcelona or madrid. portugal. i’d love to explore all that. 

what would you tell your 25 year old self knowing what you know now? 

you should have moved to san francisco right after college. just do it, and you’ll figure it out. it’s ok you were a history major and aren’t qualified to do anything, but you can do it. 

what would your 25 year old self say to you? 

golly. am i really going to talk like that?! you talk just like grandma.