Settled neatly and somewhat inconspicuously amid the tall trees and pitchy green slopes of Appalachia, there stands an old stone barn revived from the once homestead of a Scots-Irish immigrant and his robust family, heirs to nothing but soil and the piles of fieldstones that remain within and without this structure. The spider-like fingers of thick, ominous looking vines crawl along the broken remains of other walls, deep into the rotten wooden roof of a collapsed smokehouse, and along the heights of this unlikely remainder. Though well hidden from anyone not knowing its location, it is a hive the draws in those seeking that which it contains. They come in swarms to taste the sweet life it promises.

Inside, strings of white lights hang loosely over the low rafters the support a loft. The stone walls that have been covered in plaster and painted over and over now show countless peeling layers, speckles of color emerging from beneath the most recent, broken coat – a simple beige. Large pillar candles, all having seen their start long ago, are adhered to tattered tin trays by the craggy ranges of waxy mountains that have glided in sensuous slow motion down, down. They illuminate the bar and the handful of tabletops that sit mismatched underneath the loft’s shallow rise.

Beyond the aged wood beams through which breathes down the antique lightness of old souls, there is a wide opening presided over by a soaring ceiling of wide cedar planks. The only wall uninterrupted by the vacant loft seems to hold up the room, the entire building, single-handedly. High along the rising wall, the old stone peeks through where the thick overlay has come away, no doubt to the chagrin of those unwittingly below at the time. Topping it off, flying beams as thick and long as ship masts support the roof which glows from lights below and displays a spectacle of shadows black and linear. The light and dark play against one another like the stripes of a crazy quilt pieced together by the complicated hands of time and testimony, hinting at the checkered past of the many lives that have passed beneath them.

Framed in ramshackle best, a low stage sits in contrasting glory at the base of the hulking bulwark. Illuminated in vintage gold, two yellow hued lights hum in their places, metal clamped and shining with pride upwards from the illusion of a gas lit apron. Half-hung drapes, likely the used drop cloths of every restoration, dangle flush against the cool stone, plummeting swags of canvas that serve as both outline and backdrop. Vacant but commanding the attention of those who gather in its imminence, the stages waits with a restlessness uniform to that of the gathering crowd.

A coolness made crisp by the stream outside gives the air a chill that hides the spirits afoot. Years upon years, once limited on a newly settled landscape, now drift along the ebb and flow of centuries old drafts, relieving the room of the dust and doldrums so particular to others its age. Replacing the musk of rustic antiquity is a fresh air that nips coolly on bare shoulders and carries a cleansing hint of sunflower through the upper senses.

The rustling of flat shoes against the planks underfoot play the bass to a murmur of voices punctuated by bursts of laughter and the breaking of glass bottles tossed thoughtlessly into a bin of empty brothers. The tuning of strings and a roll of a snare drum, the whimper of a harmonica blown slowly begin to perforate the atonal chord being played by movement and conversation. With each poke at the crowd, more among it responses. A pop of applause. A single scream or shout. But each time, there is a dimming of distraction, a drawing toward the stage.

Sweating glasses find ledges on which to perch as audience meets show, and music – sweet music – begins to call the names of all attending with lyrics that tell the stories of a thousand men and women who’ve walked these woods innumerable nights and who’ll walk them immeasurable more. The pounding of boots, shouts of exaltation, and sighs of empathy are matched with hands to cover hearts and the combined sweat of dancers too close. Short skirts flare over nude legs trimmed in boots near purtier than the gal they rode in on as the room rises to meet the music in rapturous assembly. Hands glide to hips, slip through hair, or drop back and away. Swaying, spinning, and getting low, down low, while faces turn upward or downward to draw in the freedom from above or the intensity from below.

The moisture that once laid icy fingers on the soft shoulders of the young and hopeful selectively aiming their flirtatious glances now turns to steam. Each eye-sent invitation to dance brings the heat and raises the temperature as quickly as it raises the hopes of some and eyebrows of others. But it is the raising of glasses and bottles bottom up that keep it jovial while the audible delights lift the mood higher, sending it swirling to the vast expanse of celestial bodies once earthly and still dancing in this place – a place rich in storied layers of humanity’s existence and deeply in love with her vivid soul.