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I'm a 21 year old gay man who graduates massage therapy school in a month. I eat a mostly raw vegan diet, but I splurge now and then because life is meant to be lived. I like biking, hiking, and any outdoor activities. I want to have a couple of dogs for hiking/biking buddies.
Basically my life goal is this: I want to own my own healing center doing clinical therapeutic massage, and energy healing. I want to sell flowers/herbs/plants, and be an urban gardener. I had thought about Denver for awhile, but decided I need way more green. So I've pretty much settled on Portland, OR.
I recently discovered a new Asheville urban gardening school opening up, and it looks like an incredible program! I would love to attend. However, my main focus is massage therapy/healing, and slowly growing a clientele base within a community I want to live in for a very long time to come. So I have been recently considering a move to Asheville.
I'm very attached to the Southeast, and I love the mountains, and the area in general. So moving to Asheville would allow me to get away from home while still staying close to home. And it seems to be a mini-Portland on the east coast. But I really want to get away from the conservative, close-mindedness of this area at the same time. I want progression, balanced liberalism. I want to marry the man of my dreams one day and have a family and be normal. My husband and I take the kids and the dogs backpacking, etc. I've been to Asheville once and loved it, but I'm afraid at the same time that it will be too small for me (Knoxville is too small for me, sometimes) and won't be enough of a change from the Southern mindset that I need.
Any thoughts and opinions will be vastly appreciated. Thanks, y'all!
Hi BornJuju,
You've already done your research and thought about this a lot. The only way you'll know if Asheville is too small and conservative for you is to give it a try. Live in Asheville for six months or so, maybe attend the urban gardening school, then decide. If it's not for you, then you can move to Portland.
Good luck!
Mike
Be prepared for EXPENSIVE HOUSING and low paying service oriented employment! The wealthy retirees can be very snobbish to contend with when you're working as a cashier, at a restaurant or another "service oriented" job. I recommend the smaller, scenic college town of CORVALLIS, OREGON - just 90 minutes south of Portland, located amid the Coastal Mountains in the lush Willamette Valley. Corvallis is liberal, friendly and home to the beautiful campus of Oregon State University. Employment might have better options in this area too - in addition to nearby Salem ( State Capitol ) and Eugene.
Yah, Knoxville DOES have that closed-in ordinary feel to it. We've had to go there a few times to get some of our pets the "ultimate" treatment at their school's vet service. Now, you visited Asheville before and liked it, so that's a good sign. And the sort of goals you have are most definitely obtainable in this area. This place has a bunch of baby boomers (hippies, me), lots of 40-somethings, young college students, and older people who need massage or want it, and putting several things together is very much needed as a very easy-to-approach place to stop by that has similar ideas associated with it, what fun! And I particularly like the idea of combining massage with other "green" businesses with the plants (and small ornamental trees, small greenhouses for sale as lean-tos for the home), and I especially like your notion of "energy healing." Gosh, do I ever need that. I would also strongly suggest you add in just short average Swedish deep massage that lasts 15 mins- 30 mins, too
You may have already done this, but find the website for Mountain Xpress, it tells you all the sorts of things you want to do here, along with entertainment listings, major news stories you can't get anywhre else, and that way you'll see that if you move here, you'll fit right in here like a big bunny in a den of other bunnies that want some more rabbits in their warrens. And as for being gay, oh once in a great while you'll hear about some very cruel and criminal things that happen to our gays, but I'm 62 years old, and lived here since I was 32 years old, and while when gays have protests and whatnot downtown, they don't get bothered too terribly awful.
I lived in an old Victorian split into three apartments in Montford, and one apt had two kindly gay men. And then I lived in a rental house in West Asheville where next door two gay men lived, which we visited each other from time to time. The thing I noticed was of course they were friendly regular people and they sure know how to decorate! Ha! (I'm into design). And then when I was a player with Shakespeare in the Park (their name and locale are difff now), I knew lots of gay men, younger and older, and they were a lot of fun, some quite fierce, some rather open about their sexuality, some shy. My husband worked for two gay men, he never had one single problem with them, they really liked him (he's easy to like...SMILE).
The thing about all the massage and gardening and anything else you can do to make life better for our communities is the massage, gardening, etc., are all kind of chopped up at the moment. This makes your goal a good idea. As it is, unless I'm missing out on something, is you gotta go down some little side street I don't know where it is, into a two-story old house to get a massage, and I also don't want to go at night downtown somewhere to have "energy healing." That takes a lot of trust, and with some people really over the top and downright snobbish with their kuwel routine, can be hard to be who I am, which is very laid back but very wildly funny (believe it or not, dry humor offends some people), and I STILL wear the old bell-bottoms, shirts from India, and hair to my waist (before I lost all my hair to cancer three years ago). I don't worry about my style or noisy yet thoughtful ways it, but I will NOT go to these places where I'm expected to fit in. SIGH.
We have dogs too, we used to go hiking a lot. One place we absolutlely loved to do a couple times a year was drive I guess about 45 mins to the Carl Sandburg Farm, where dogs were allowed, lake to walk them around, dirt roads, big slabs of slate-type rock (hence their locale name is Flat Rock), and Sandburg's wife's prize-winning goats. At the time, our dog was maybe a year old when he met his first goat, it was the sweetest thing you can imagine, and when they herded up and took off, I said to Gandalf, 'What about those goats?" and he let out a polite, soft, "Woof." There are also some hiking trails in Black Mountain up around on the Montreat property. There are hiking clubs, of course, with diff levels of ability. A very relaxed but long hike is up near Lake Lure, at Chimney Rock Park, and at the base of the falls is a long, wide dirt trail that takes you to the pools and rocks down there, nice for resting, but good to get back to the car. There's a dog show out fairly close to Black Mt once a year, and one or two at the Ag Center near the airport.
I can visualize what you're wanting, and I really think this is THE spot for what you're looking for since you're wanting to hang in the South. I'm the same way about the South, my family from centuries have lived in NC. By the time I got here, I was ten years older than you, and I had been all over the world, all over our country, and while I think I like Charleston SC the best, that's just for Southern living in retirement. I think at your age, this is the spot. And i DO think you should take advantage of that plant gardening school you heard about. The more info you can cram into your head right now, the easier all this business stuff will be. I'm thinking you must have some business sense. But you COULD take a course over at AB Tech in some sort of business subject, or over at UNCA. I once wanted to start a business, and I felt I had enough sense to do it, but I think an accountant would have HAD to be with me somehow, becuz otherwise I'd screw it up, I'm no good with numbers. I'm just saying...
I know this is all to much information, but what the heck,you asked!!! And I like to write, used to for our paper. But I hope this is helpig you. And I hope it brings out the folks who disagree with certain things, as well as folks who would like to zero in on something I may not know about well enough. So, I wanted to bring up one more thing that you didn't really mention. And this is where to live. In my opinion, the best investment a person can make is real estate. But since you have not lived here before, it's a good idea of course to rent for a while. There's a rental business called Leslie and Associates and they got all kinds of VERY interesting and neat places to look at online, it's fun to see the pics, description, and so forth. You'll need a good map of town with all the streets, everything within the city limits (the other side might have the county limits). So, next time you come, go to the Visitor's Center and get a billion brochures and of course that map. Now, my personal preference is to live north of town. You can bike or walk to town from there. I used to. Now I need my limo chauffeur... hahaha.
The way Asheville works is, it's situated and laid out on a map N, S, E, W, with the middle of town right smack in the middle of the map. At the top of the map is "North Asheville," and to the west, it's "West Asheville," and so on. There is the standard round freeway around downtown, and if someone lives in North Asheville, it's the easiest way to get into the downtown area. However, if you live in West Asheville, you have to go over a big bridge, which is about to become a huge disaster area because after about five or ten years of arguing between our town council and the DOT, they're gonna put some kinda eight-lane road into there! Crazy, crazy. I mean, if they're gonna put it, six lanes is enough.
So, after you go over this brigde, then you have hamburger allley with 50 million traffic lights. But I will say this, I did rent over there a while (I've owned 25 years, paid in full now) and if you fit yourself in fairly close to its "downtown," it's kind of a nice little place to start out, kind of the latest neat spot, whereas 20 years ago it was Montford. But I still stick to North Asheville. Historic Montford, North Charlotte, Norwood Park, a few neighborhoods tucked in here and there, plus some rather expensive and grand old homes going up the road to the Grove Park Inn. Lots of stuff has been written about all these places, and of course if you come up and stay awhile, you'll get a much better handle on what's going on, as well as reading the Mountain Xpress. Lots of neat cafes to eat downtown, bookstores, local craft stuff, basically three parts of downtown. My fav is the Wall Street, Haywood Street & Grove Arcade locale, then there's the Lexington area, and then Pack Square where the Courthouse & City Hall is. Some people do like to live in town, usually upstair over a store.
If you got more questions, or at least start to put together a plan, keep us posted!! Everybody here is real interested in answering questions about subjects. Also, you can do a very simple thing to find out a lot, when you go back to the main forum for this section, where all the quesions are lined up, page after page, there's a SEARCH this forum place where you can ask or put key words in, and a big list of related threads will come up for you, so you can see what other people have to say. Oh, almos forgot, I THINK there's still two gay clubs/bars downtown, if you like that sort of thing. Just be very, very careful after miidnight. GG
I'm just going to throw this out there--massage therapists and energy healers seem to be at a saturation point in Asheville. It seems like every other person in Asheville is a massage therapist. So you might have a hard time making a living doing that.
Otherwise, Asheville seems perfect for your interests/lifestyle.
In many ways I'd think Asheville would be a great fit for you - it's very vegan friendly, gay friendly, and dog friendly, and that program sounds fantastic. But I agree with corvidae that there are many massage therapists around, so you would need to be sure you filled a special niche. Also, the region outside the city limits does tend to be much more conservative, and I doubt that same-sex marriages will be legal in this state any time soon. Still, definitely worth a visit to see if you feel at home here.
As a massage therapist, I have to agree about the saturated market here. There are too many therapists, and too many people trying to open healing businesses. Even highly experienced therapists are scrambling with multiple jobs, and many (like me) have opted to make long commutes out of town to find an establishment that both pays well and has a steady stream of clients.
I am not trying to dissuade you from coming here, because it otherwise seems like an excellent fit, but I think it will be helpful to warn you to expect to struggle with your profession. A compromise might be to live in Asheville, but set up your business in a smaller town that is still close enough to be a comfortable daily commute.
Massage therapists are a dime a dozen here but so are home remodelers and I are one and have made a great living for 20 years. Just be very good at what you do.
I think the Gay marriage thing will come sooner than most people think. The dominoes are falling.
It's good that you want dogs but it had better be for more than hiking and biking, they are family and should be treated as such. That means couch time, bed time dinner time.......let me cut to the chase...any time they want.
So you've pretty much settled on Portland? What did we do to tick you off? Was it the gun rally? I swear, those people came from out of town.
Seriously, you sound young and full of hope and adventure, you will do fine where ever you go. Good luck!
As another gay man, native to NC, let me warn you that NC, previously a Purple, moderate state, has taken a hard, I mean HARD lurch to the political Right in the past two years. Asheville, one of the liberal spots of the state (and there are many), was deliberately gerrymandered by Republicans into the most conservative Congressional district, effective neutralizing its power. Of course NC Republicans forced a ballot measure against same-sex marriage and civil unions/domestic partnerships onto the ballots last May, in an underhanded way to ensure turnout would be low and it would pass (since no November states passed similar measures, we may go down on record as being the last state to pass such a Constitutional Amendment--even though when the NC Legislature was Democratic, the bill was defeated for seven years in a row).
If you want to live where you can marry your partner, NC is not that place, I'm sorry to say (I'm partnered for 30 years and California-married for 4). Asheville is a neat, cool town and I love the state I grew up in, but I don't think it meets the needs you state. Maybe in a decade or so...
I feel like I'm good at what I do (not to be cocky, just confident) and I believe in the power of thought, that what you think is drawn to you. Plus I have an idea that will be a little different, to make me stand out some. Just gotta make sure I can do it (need to look up the NC laws). Not to mention that from a health standpoint, everyone should be getting massage. It's proven that all disease and illness comes from stress, and massage therapists are the only healthcare practitioners who vastly reduce stress and put the body back into its natural state of homeostasis. I'm sure over half of Asheville doesn't get regular clinical massage, which leaves a huge open market.
I wish I had confidence in gay marriage being nationwide within a decade, but that's one thing I'm not confident in. :P
I feel like Asheville would be different from Knoxville, but still keep me in my Appalachian roots, and near my family. I may be gay, but I really just want to heal people and spread peace and meditation and have a mini farm. With occasional outings or bar hopping. :P
As a gay man, I have about 10% of the population, plus laws to think about. One concern for me is that the Knoxville LGBT community seems relatively small - everyone knows everyone. And I don't really like that. I wonder if it's worse in Asheville due to a smaller population?
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