O Pioneer

(birds chirping) (wind whistling) (birds chirping) (wind whistling) (birds chirping) (leaves crunching) (Kaa speaks in French) - All at once, I'm frightened by it, and somehow head over heels for it.

But it's been exploited.

Too often, Appalachian despair sells books, movies, and news, obscuring the heart of this place.

But if you filter through these loud voices, (Kaa speaks in French).

(gentle music) Something worth more than the tired jokes we tell around our dinner tables or the ugly stories we see in the news.

Something worth more than the coal that fuels America or the timber that holds our homes.

I see a pioneer, a pioneer weathered by hardship, strengthened by mistakes, making a new path.

(bright music) And in this adventure ahead, we aren't conquering the West, (vocalists sing in Arapaho) exploring the depths of the ocean, or jetting off to the moon.

(Kaa speaks in French) - [Cowboy] Hey-ya!

(plane engine whirring) (vocalists sing in Arapaho) (train whirring) The day has come for a reckoning.

(vocalists sing in Arapaho) (vocalists sing in Arapaho) (vocalists sing in Arapaho) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (vocalists sing in Arapaho) (vocalists sing in Arapaho) (metal clanking) - [Nellie] I love when clothing tells a story.

Even this silk button down shirt I have underneath was my mom's, and I think before her, it may have been my grandma's.

But it's missing a button.

I mean, there's literally a safety pin in here keeping it together.

(birds chirping) I make clothing that is one of a kind and it's fun and it's not bound in traditional modes of what clothing should be.

When people like it, they have fun with it.

(Nellie chuckles) That's what I want my work to do.

I want it to bring joy.

I want it to bring comfort.

I want it to bring playfulness into people getting dressed for their day.

(upbeat music) - [Nellie] That's okay.

Not too bad.

- Okay!

I like it.

It gives me, like, more layers.

- It's warmer.

- I love it.

I love it.

I love it a lot.

(gentle music) For me, it starts with my parents just being the first role models of crafting a creative life in rural West Virginia.

(air whooshes) (birds chirping) They made clothing.

They dyed beautiful, one-of-a-kind garments, and I feel like that has been passed on to me.

If you just looked at the money, we would definitely have been poor, but still got to live so well, you know, because my parents worked from home, so they were there.

Even when they split up, you know, they were always there.

(gentle music continues) I just feel so lucky to have had two incredible makers kind of form my foundation.

(fabric whooshing) (gentle music continues) My dad did a lot of dye work using a Japanese traditional dye method called shibori.

That's why I use raw silk now.

(gentle music continues) (fabric rustling) (sewing machine whirring) (gentle music) (wind whistling) (gentle music continues) These fabrics hold me together.

The clothing that I make hold me together.

(gentle music continues) I am trying to understand that they do have purpose, they do have a place in the world, even if it is just for me.

(gentle music continues) (wind whistling) (metal clanking) - My dad was a craftsman.

He was always making stuff and my mom and dad were always into pioneer living and historical stuff.

Anytime we'd go on vacation, we were going to some old homestead.

So you'd always see craftsmen at work.

And I just stood and watched this guy doing this blacksmith thing and I watched him all day.

His name was Gene King.

At the end of the day, he gave me a leaf that I watched him make.

After that, I was pretty well hooked on it, you know?

(metal clanking) I'm gonna call that a door handle that needs holes drilled in it.

(metal sizzling) (metal clanking) My grandparents, they were kids in the Depression and it changed everything about how they acted.

Keeping their money in a coffee can and not throwing anything away, like I am, I mean, a pack rat, you know, a hoarder as Sasha would say.

I like pack rat better though.

Hoarder sounds awful.

(Tim chuckles) A lot of these tools that I have are passed down from my dad to me and from his dad to him.

I'm like the curator of the family history.

This claw hammer was my dad's.

I mean, he's been gone for almost 20 years, but I get something outta seeing that tattered duct tape around that broken handle.

The kids, you know, they drive a nail holding their granddad's hammer who they never met, but somehow they're able to, you know, get that spirit and energy from that, I believe.

They believe.

I'm all about the soul of the inanimate object.

There's just something to it.

- [Sasha] My first job was at McDonald's, I think like every other teenager.

So there was one day that he came in and I don't know what possessed me but I just thought he was the bee's knees and I just seized the moment, and I swear right there in front of God and everybody, I talked to him for 15 minutes and wouldn't let him leave.

And I mean, and it was one of those situations where I'm just (babbles).

It was just love from there.

(Sasha laughs) I remember the first time that he ever took me to his parents' house.

You know, when you're in somebody's house for the first time, you're trying to discreetly eye everything.

And I see all these paintings.

They were so unusual to me.

You could tell that they were originals and I'm like, "Man, these are, like, amazing."

His dad finally caught onto me just kinda eyeballing all the, 'cause my eyes just kept wandering back.

I just couldn't tear my eyes off of all these paintings.

And his dad said, "Well, these are Tim's."

And I said like, "Did he buy these?"

And he says, "No, those are his paintings."

I'm like, "What do you mean?"

And his dad says, "He painted them," (chuckles) you know, like really slowly 'cause he could tell I didn't understand what he meant.

His dad took me to every room then and just showed me all these paintings.

And I remember thinking, "My God, to have this amazing talent."

I mean, they were incredible.

But the thing that really stuck out to me was I have stumbled across a very humble man.

You know, to have found out this way.

You know, I had no idea, because it never came from his lips.

(bright music) - [James] I know this sounds really strange, but my great-grandmother's bowl helps me through the day.

My father was stationed in Guam.

I was only two years old.

My mother could not have the courage to tell my great-grandmother that I would be leaving.

So she didn't tell her.

And the family story is that she died broken-hearted because I'd never met her.

It's told me that early on, someone loved me that dearly.

Then does not James have value?

Then does not everybody have value?

(dog barking) (gentle music) I was born on May 14th, 1959, in Hampton, Virginia, actually, Langley Air Force Base Hospital.

My father was stationed at Langley and my parents are from Mountain City, Tennessee.

When I look back at it now, it was indeed an education in itself and an opening to encounter different cultures wherever we lived.

One fond memory is that when I was little, I would spend summers with my Grandmother Morley.

Wherever my parents were stationed, I would always spend the summer with her.

(bright music) There was a point overlook on their land that you could see the whole valley.

(bright music continues) We would go up there and she would sit down below this rock and then I would get on the rock and preach and I'd preach to the whole valley.

(bright music continues) And although she was my grandmother, she would sit and listen (chuckles).

And there's no telling what I'd said at that age.

I mean, if y'all don't straighten up, you're gonna know hell fire.

(bright music continues) She had the presence to be able to just listen.

From the very day I'm gone You'll know the train I'm on - What a way to inspire confidence.

You'll hear the whistle blow a hundred miles (bright music continues) - [James] I go to teach this class, and here James [Riggs] is and he has on these really nice Allen Edmonds shoes and it's like, "Oh, man, wow," you know?

Afterward, they all were going out to lunch.

I was already bowled over by the shoes and then James puts on this long leather coat that matches the shoes.

That even made it worse.

I was already in pursuit mode and I think James picked up on that.

That was 2002.

But, you know, marriage wasn't legal yet, so we didn't get married till we could in 2016.

- I have an underlying resentment against the institutional church.

The reason I went into chaplaincy is because I came out, and at that time in the '90s, when no one like me could be safely in a pulpit.

That has taken a long process to work out.

In fact, I haven't worked it out yet.

James and I struggle greatly.

So chaplaincy was sort of the way to survive.

Not that I don't have great joy in chaplaincy.

(gentle music) (car whirring) (car door clicks) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) This woman, her brother was dying.

She asked me to go pray with him.

So I get prepared to see a man by himself.

His estranged daughter is there.

Well, we don't have any visitors.

She works in the hospital.

Hi, it's Chaplain Morley.

(machine beeping) I said, "Well, tell me about your father."

He was an alcoholic.

He had abandoned her all her life.

(gentle music continues) She said, "Chaplain, I'm so pissed.

I feel like running out of this room and screaming down the hall."

I see you're tenderly holding his hand right now.

You're tenderly holding his hand.

(gentle music continues) "I cannot let him go, being here by himself."

She stayed with him.

Nobody else in the family were allowed to be there, but she stayed.

I bent down and I told him, "I'm Chaplain Morley."

I had a prayer with them two holding hands together.

(gentle music continues) The room to me is a sacred space when I'm called into it.

All that is there, all the people that are there, I inherit that dynamic.

I sort of take a deep breath and I breathe and I receive such a blessing in the narratives.

It is the most beautiful journey to ever be on.

(gentle music continues) (birds chirping) - The word pioneer originates in Middle French, (Kaa speaks in French), referring to soldiers who would clear a path for the army or to miners pulling resources from underground.

(Kaa speaks in French) Just as it was in 1865 when Walt Whitman wrote about the purpose and life of the 19th century American pioneer.

With a poetic call to arms, the American pioneer was wooed to settle the West.

Land was something to be tamed, rivers to be seized, and indigenous people to be trampled.

In the context of United States history, a pioneer's efforts included devastating acts of environmental destruction as well as displacement of and violence toward Native people.

Society continues to celebrate the pioneer that innovates at all costs.

(gentle music) (Kaa speaks in French) In modern times, the word pioneer has evolved to a nearly unreachable level, reserved for a select few.

(bright music) (soldiers shouting indistinctly) (birds chirping) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (sewing machine whirring) (gentle music continues) - I'm really close to both of my parents, but I have not seen my parents for seven, eight weeks.

I mean, I haven't seen my mom for months because of COVID.

I miss them so much.

I'm almost in tears just thinking about it.

It's just sad.

(birds chirping) (gentle music) Yeah, I'm just, I think I'm struggling with that.

(gentle music continues) I've been having extreme mental blockages when it comes to creativity and my work.

I can just see my mental wellbeing just kind of crumbling.

and that's why I've decided that I should dedicate my time to making masks.

(gentle music continues) (sewing machine whirring) (gentle music continues) I wish that I had motivation to work more on Nellie Rose Textiles, but honestly, I don't see where it's necessary while we're going through a crisis.

And while I think that this movement of people from home sewing and sending to hospitals and everything is a very heroic act, I just can't wait until the day that we don't have to.

- [Tim] This week, found out about the virus being present at Sasha's work.

It makes us feel like we ought to stay a little further apart than what we were.

(metal clanking) (gentle music) Sasha as a full-time nurse basically gets home from work and, you know, we have to keep our distance.

There's a lot of stress going with this right now.

- [Sasha] You know, just to come home every single day and walk by your family and know that you don't get to go in the door that you want to, you just have to keep walking.

- [Tim] She would get home and she'd park here in the driveway for a minute, and, of course, it was still cold, you know, sometimes there was snow and stuff.

So it was like, "Well, you know, how was your day at work?"

And then she'd march up to the camper and we'd make dinner and take her food to her.

(gentle music continues) It feels like a long-distance relationship, even though she's like a hundred yards away.

So we haven't figured out a way to be around each other.

It's real awkward.

(gentle music continues) - [Sasha] I tried really hard to focus on the positive.

You know, I was so lucky every day that I was able to wake up and go to work, and know that we had a paycheck coming in two weeks that was still gonna provide food for our family.

But it's so hard to work for something that you can't be part of.

(gentle music continues) (birds chirping) To be isolated, I can't think of anything utterly more miserable than that, you know, than to be alone and to just watch the movie of your life from a window.

(gentle music continues) (fire crackling) (gentle music continues) (fire crackling) (metal squeaking) (bright music) Ground Control to Major Tom Ground Control to Major Tom Take your protein pills and put your helmet on Ground Control to Major Tom Commencing countdown, engines on Check ignition and may God's love be with you This is Ground Control to Major Tom You've really made the grade And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare Though I'm past a hundred thousand miles I'm feeling very still And I think my spaceship knows which way to go Tell my wife I love her very much she knows Ground Control to Major Tom Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong Can you hear me Major Tom Can you hear me Major Tom Can you hear me Major Tom - I had a really, really bad healthcare scare in December and, you know, I ended up being hospitalized.

I was at work and I remember I had this godawful swooshing in my head and it felt like the side of my neck was going to burst.

I knew something was very wrong.

And I had taken my blood pressure and it was bad.

It was like stroke level bad.

I had a hypertensive emergency and, you know, blood pressure was just way outta control and they had to slowly, with IV blood pressure medications, bring that down.

If they dropped it too fast, it would've induced a stroke.

(gentle music) And Tim and the kids couldn't come in the hospital.

And I remember having this moment thinking, "I might not see them again."

(gentle music continues) I thought, "Am I gonna succumb to this?

If I do, am I ready?

Is my family ready?

You know, do I have everything in order?"

(gentle music continues) (sobs) I'm sorry.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) You hear how your life flashes before your eyes, but really, it was the lives of my kids.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - [Nellie] Hey, Pops.

(gentle music) - [Michael] I was heating with the wood furnace on Christmas Day.

and I ran downstairs and there was fire in the ceiling of the basement.

There was fire burning around the wood stove and around the chimney.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) They were not able to save the house.

(gentle music continues) Just really loved this house.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (metal clanking) - Last year, I had a spell of acute pancreatitis.

They did an MRI and it showed a cyst on my pancreas.

I had another recurrence of pancreatitis last week.

So I was in the hospital.

There's evidently more than fluid.

There's some kind of cell growth going on.

So it's either going to be cancer of the pancreas or not.

And from that, well, I will determine what I need to do to take care of this.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) It's my first potential cancer scare.

(gentle music continues) (metal clanking) I had the biopsy done and then it came back a week later as malignant.

(gentle music continues) (clock chiming) It is called Acinar Cell Carcinoma.

They had 50 cases in the United States last year.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) Good morning, everybody.

- Morning.

- Good morning.

- In the short time I've known my diagnosis, it's like a wave.

And on my way up here, I had the top down in the car.

And this is just how it goes.

I'm crying and I'm screaming, and you can scream at the top of your lungs with a convertible (chuckles).

And tears are coming down my face, but I got my sunglasses on so no one else knows.

I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid.

(gentle music) (paper rustling) When I got that diagnosis, what immediately happens when you get something like that, you immediately start thinking about your death.

I kept on having flashes of my funeral in Helvetia.

I would see the church, and it was in the springtime and it was so pretty.

(gentle music continues) It was a beautiful vision, but it was very distressing too.

One thing I've told James Riggs, regardless of what happens to me, I do want my ashes to be put in that stream in front of the church.

(gentle music continues) (water splashing) And this is what I leave with you today, 'cause I'm hoping to be able to defeat this long enough to persecute you for a few more years, okay?

(congregation laughs) Okay.

(laughs) I hope.

Wherever it is, wherever, if my service happens, when and if it does, I want it to begin with this.

The Lord is in His holy temple.

Let all the earth keep silence before Him.

(gentle music continues) And we also need to remember the Lord is in this holy temple, in this holy temple, the Lord is in this holy temple.

And so if we can be silent, we will receive the wisdom we need to navigate this life or the next.

(gentle music) Poets be buried In tender marching feet Buried as seeds And watered in the street Chained to the fates of strangers Facing all defeat Poets be buried In tender marching feet I asked my father If this is all there is A home that won't claim you A country that rescinds You are your own saint You're a center to hold A life, a life to live I asked my father If this is all there is (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (birds chirping) (clock chiming) (James speaks indistinctly) - On many levels, we are not able to see where we're going all the time, and I think that's a characteristic of the pioneer experience.

If you are facing the unknown, you can either let it paralyze you or from within you comes the courage to continue forward, but that clears away that mist and then you see where you're going.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) It's been very good just to be here at home and center myself.

I don't know if chaplaincy is going to be it or not.

In my rest here at home, I find myself thinking of other options, it really causes me to rethink how do I want to spend the rest of my life.

(dramatic music) (person inhales deeply) (person exhales sharply) I've had my fourth chemo and then I have the fifth one coming up and they can see if the chemo's had any effect on the tumor.

If it's on course, then it's definitely gonna be surgery after the sixth chemo.

(liquid dripping) (eerie music) - Sasha moved back into the house.

It seems like we kind of slid right back into the groove of doing what we've been doing.

Really it's just kind of been a lot like normal.

You know, you always see the wings painted on a wall and people standing in front of 'em.

I've always thought that was a really cool idea, but I thought we could ramp it up a little bit by having like a sculptured set of wings that you could kind of stand within, yeah.

(machinery whirring) Yeah, my whole goal with this one here is I want all of the material donated by people and then you give the project back.

(machinery whirring) (metal clanking) And just like that, we have eight more feathers.

- [Sasha] So I had this bright idea that I would bring my laptop out here and I would write while he paints.

And that turns into us talking and drinking wine and listening to music.

And I'm like, "Yeah, just proof read here of this paragraph."

I mean, you know what I mean?

Really, you're not doing anything (laughs).

Well, that's really coming together.

- [Tim] Yeah, it is.

- [Sasha] Oh, it's gonna be amazing.

(stairs creaking) (bright music) (bright music continues) Well, there's music in my head C chords and conversations Thistles in my bed I'll make it when I'm able Break the daily bread Sit downs, citadels, and songs Where's home If I don't start thinking about what I'm doing Won't stop all this motion for the sake of movement Can't stop That's exactly what I'm doing I'm digging in, shaking down, pouring out I'm digging in, shaking down, pouring out But if I don't start thinking about what I'm doing Won't stop all this motion for the sake of movement Can't stop That's exactly what I'm doing I'm digging in, shaking down, pouring out I'm digging in, shaking down, pouring out (singers vocalizing) Fireflies, whippoorwills, and home - [Nellie] I sent myself down the path of trying to wrap up masks that we are making.

It really hit me that I needed to see the end.

I needed time to actually get back in that flow of creative practice.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (keys rattling) (car door slams) (bright music) (bright music continues) - There we go.

Sanctuary.

We're in the pastor's study at Fleming Memorial Presbyterian Church in Fairmont, West Virginia.

(gentle music) I have been hired to be their interim minister.

I enjoy it greatly.

This is Cameron Presbyterian Church.

The last church that I was installed as a minister in 1994 to 1996 before coming back to this church in 2021.

That's like 25 years, isn't it?

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) I shared where my father's mother would listen to me preach on the rock above the valley.

It's like looking at that big valley again.

(wind whistling) (bright music) (bright music continues) (Kaa speaks in French) - One that echoes through these hollows asking us to take another look.

For we are a life to live and determined to endure without repeating the follies of our past.

(Kaa speaks in French) This is a call to Nellie, James, and Tim, a call to me and a call to you.

We are not pawns.

We are pioneers.

(bright music) - (chuckles) Okay, oh, yeah.

- I took a little cup - Cheers.

- Cheers.

(Nellie laughs) Wow, I took a, I grabbed a lot.

I didn't mean to.

- Oh, yeah, I forgot.

I'm like, "Oh, yeah, that's not juice.

That's..." When I was a child I didn't hear a single word you said The things I was afraid of They were all confined beneath my bed (crowd chattering) (doorbell rings) The years have been long And you have taught me well to hide away - [James] Hi!

The things that I believe in - [James] The doctors have done everything they can do and I'm cancer free.

Oh, it's wonderful.

(friend whistles) - Woo!

I know who you are now (crowd cheers and applauds) I know who you are I know who you are now - Ready, set, go!

(Cara and Nellie laugh) - Cheers.

- Cheers.

I know who you are now I know who you are I know who I am now And all that you've made of me I know who you are now And I name you my enemy (singer vocalizing) (air whooshes) (singer vocalizing) (singer vocalizing) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues)