For a while on those late-summer drives, Stubblefield began believing he had fallen into an adventure. Near the top of Jorre Gap stood a lone log cabin, a tourist shop selling folkloric products, according to a hand-lettered sign by the road. Local honey, handmade pottery, rabbit-tobacco door wreaths, quilts, arrowheads. But the shop was closed. It had either failed or had taken a recuperative pause after Labor Day and was waiting to reopen early in October, when the leaf lookers drove up from the flatlands. Passing the tourist shop, he noticed a face behind the window, indistinct in the shallow light. Stubblefield’s initial reaction was to declare it a girl’s face, and possible a pretty one. As he switchbacked from gap to valley, he wondered why his first thought was to distinguish man from woman, pretty from not pretty? Probably because he was so damn lonely and because the schematic of our fool brains inclines us that way. Always looking for any opportunity to cast our sad little package of hope into a future we won’t inhabit.

 

From my newest favorite book of all times.  Nightwoods, by Charles Frazier