Tim and I were watching a couple of dozen of seabirds (different kinds of gulls, sandpipers, some smaller birds) standing on the beach, all looking in the same direction. This is not unusual here on Oak Island. Yesterday I walked a mile to the west and back and saw three such gatherings. The groupings can be 10 or 12 or upwards of 50--standing on the beach, all looking in the same direction.
I am confused and confounded by this behavior. It's like these congregations of birds say to each other, "hey, let's all stand on the beach and look in the same direction for no particular reason to confuse and confound the humans!"
And they all agree that's a wonderful idea.
And it works.
Tim and I just looked at each other and shook our heads, confused and confounded.
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
Three sleeps...
One of the most disconcerting things about a one week vacation is that people start thinking about it ending long before it ends.
At dinner tonight, one of our number said, 'only two more days'...alas.
The thing is, there are two reasons I don't think like that: I'm no good at linear time and have to think real hard to figure out how many days are left and, every wonderful day here means I'm one day closer to getting home to my Puli.
It is embarrassing to admit how much I miss our dog. I haven't had a good night's sleep because when I wake up at home, I reach over and rub him and go back to sleep. (Sleep with me, sleep with my dog....) Here, he's not there to rub.
John and Bern and I have been talking about coming for two weeks next fall. The only thing that remains to work out is bringing Bela. It would involve drugging him to the gills, finding a pet friendly motel somewhere in the middle of Virginia and actually committing to what would be required to bring that awful dog we love so much.
When our children were small, we never came for less than three weeks--a couple of times for a month.
That kind of time at the ocean puts you in touch with the deep down rhythms of human beings. You start going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. You lose track of what day it is (I do that because of age now, so being at the ocean for a month would completely un-stick me in time. You eat when you are hungry instead of at 'meal times'. You begin to roll like the ocean.
One reason I'm glad I don't live on a beach by an ocean is that I fear I'd come to take it for granted and not notice anymore how healing the waters' rolling truly is.
Two more glorious days, two days of travel with people I love. And then I'll go get Bela!
All that sounds great to me....
At dinner tonight, one of our number said, 'only two more days'...alas.
The thing is, there are two reasons I don't think like that: I'm no good at linear time and have to think real hard to figure out how many days are left and, every wonderful day here means I'm one day closer to getting home to my Puli.
It is embarrassing to admit how much I miss our dog. I haven't had a good night's sleep because when I wake up at home, I reach over and rub him and go back to sleep. (Sleep with me, sleep with my dog....) Here, he's not there to rub.
John and Bern and I have been talking about coming for two weeks next fall. The only thing that remains to work out is bringing Bela. It would involve drugging him to the gills, finding a pet friendly motel somewhere in the middle of Virginia and actually committing to what would be required to bring that awful dog we love so much.
When our children were small, we never came for less than three weeks--a couple of times for a month.
That kind of time at the ocean puts you in touch with the deep down rhythms of human beings. You start going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. You lose track of what day it is (I do that because of age now, so being at the ocean for a month would completely un-stick me in time. You eat when you are hungry instead of at 'meal times'. You begin to roll like the ocean.
One reason I'm glad I don't live on a beach by an ocean is that I fear I'd come to take it for granted and not notice anymore how healing the waters' rolling truly is.
Two more glorious days, two days of travel with people I love. And then I'll go get Bela!
All that sounds great to me....
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Pelicans and a south facing beach
Long Beach, one of the three beaches on Oak Island, NC, faces south. Yaupon Beach faces East and Fort Caswell Beach faces north-east.
A south facing beach has the sun rise on your left, as you look out toward Cuba, and crosses overhead until it sets on your right. So, the sun is never directly in your eyes as you look at the Atlantic. It does heat you on both sides during the day.
We put up the state flag of West Virginia, as we do except when I forget to bring it, and it blows north almost all day. There are no insects here because the wind blows them inland. When the breeze comes from the north, go inside because the insects from the inlets and marshes of the island will be blown down to the beach! But that seldom happens.
Pelicans breed here. I didn't see many the first day or two, but today they are back: large, solemn, stately, flying in formations of 5 to 9 up and down the beach and diving for fish out in the water with a grace such a large, odd bird shouldn't possess.
I love Pelicans...would like to be one for a few hours but wouldn't agree to that for fear my avian mind would take over and I'd forget to come back....
A south facing beach has the sun rise on your left, as you look out toward Cuba, and crosses overhead until it sets on your right. So, the sun is never directly in your eyes as you look at the Atlantic. It does heat you on both sides during the day.
We put up the state flag of West Virginia, as we do except when I forget to bring it, and it blows north almost all day. There are no insects here because the wind blows them inland. When the breeze comes from the north, go inside because the insects from the inlets and marshes of the island will be blown down to the beach! But that seldom happens.
Pelicans breed here. I didn't see many the first day or two, but today they are back: large, solemn, stately, flying in formations of 5 to 9 up and down the beach and diving for fish out in the water with a grace such a large, odd bird shouldn't possess.
I love Pelicans...would like to be one for a few hours but wouldn't agree to that for fear my avian mind would take over and I'd forget to come back....
Liver pudding
I eat stuff at the beach that I don't eat the rest of the year.
Like liver pudding--fried up with eggs for breakfast.
Liver 'pudding' used to be called liver 'mush', according to Sherry, who the only true 'Southerner' among us, having been born in South Carolina. (John, Bern, Mimi and I were all born in West Virginia, which isn't 'southern' but Appalachia. Tim was born and bred in Massachusetts-so we don't know mush about liver pudding.)
Sherry believes that they changed the name because people were turned off by the concept of 'mush'. I don't buy that because I think people who were turned off by 'liver mush' will be equally grossed out by 'liver pudding' since it's the 'liver' they're reacting to in the first place.
There is some kind of liver in liver pudding and corn meal, for sure. Beyond that, I can't tell you what's in it, even though the package is in the refrigerator and I could go look at the ingredients. But, truth be told, I don't want to know what's in it! I only eat it at the beach and it is tasty fried crisp with an egg on top and I probably couldn't eat it if I knew all the ingredients.
Some things are better tasting shrouded in mystery.
Like liver pudding--fried up with eggs for breakfast.
Liver 'pudding' used to be called liver 'mush', according to Sherry, who the only true 'Southerner' among us, having been born in South Carolina. (John, Bern, Mimi and I were all born in West Virginia, which isn't 'southern' but Appalachia. Tim was born and bred in Massachusetts-so we don't know mush about liver pudding.)
Sherry believes that they changed the name because people were turned off by the concept of 'mush'. I don't buy that because I think people who were turned off by 'liver mush' will be equally grossed out by 'liver pudding' since it's the 'liver' they're reacting to in the first place.
There is some kind of liver in liver pudding and corn meal, for sure. Beyond that, I can't tell you what's in it, even though the package is in the refrigerator and I could go look at the ingredients. But, truth be told, I don't want to know what's in it! I only eat it at the beach and it is tasty fried crisp with an egg on top and I probably couldn't eat it if I knew all the ingredients.
Some things are better tasting shrouded in mystery.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Light Show
On Sunday night, after a great dinner and a day of being calmed by the ocean, Tim came inside where Bern and Sherry and I were--Tim, Mimi and John were down in the gazebo at the end of the walkway to the steps to the beach. "You've got to see this," is all he said.
Down above the steps we stayed for an hour, at least, watching a light show worth paying for.
A range of black clouds were above Emerald Isle, the beach to the West of Oak Island, back on the NC mainland. Lightening lit up the clouds in rapid succession and wondrous ways. Only once or twice did that power break through and throw white and jagged bolts down to the ocean. But the cloud exploded in golden light over and over and over.
It was a blessing and honor to see that, to be in the near presence of such raw power and raw beauty.
We 'ooed' and 'ahhed' for almost an hour until the show slowly came to an end.
Nature...how do you beat that?
Down above the steps we stayed for an hour, at least, watching a light show worth paying for.
A range of black clouds were above Emerald Isle, the beach to the West of Oak Island, back on the NC mainland. Lightening lit up the clouds in rapid succession and wondrous ways. Only once or twice did that power break through and throw white and jagged bolts down to the ocean. But the cloud exploded in golden light over and over and over.
It was a blessing and honor to see that, to be in the near presence of such raw power and raw beauty.
We 'ooed' and 'ahhed' for almost an hour until the show slowly came to an end.
Nature...how do you beat that?
Mimi and Tim
Mimi and Tim took 3 days to come to North Carolina. They stopped in Philadelphia on Thursday night and Richmond on Friday night. Sort of a 'pre-marriage' time together--being in a car on interstates, well, I talked about that in my last post....Good for them.
So, they got to Oak Island before us and picked up the key to the 'Andromeda Strand' (a tad to 'cute' of a name, but a great house).
In spite of that, we got to the house about 5 minutes before they did because they took the time to go to Food Lion and get us all we needed for the first day or so.
When they arrived, it was like we'd not seen them for years...decades...hugs and kisses and shrill greetings all around.
What could be better than being at a beautiful beach, in a great house with people you love dearly?
Not much....
So, they got to Oak Island before us and picked up the key to the 'Andromeda Strand' (a tad to 'cute' of a name, but a great house).
In spite of that, we got to the house about 5 minutes before they did because they took the time to go to Food Lion and get us all we needed for the first day or so.
When they arrived, it was like we'd not seen them for years...decades...hugs and kisses and shrill greetings all around.
What could be better than being at a beautiful beach, in a great house with people you love dearly?
Not much....
traveling...
(a little late--busy and trouble figuring out how to find my blog to write on--I found the blog over and again, just not to write on...but John found it for me...)
Friday and Saturday, we traveled--Bern and John and Sherry and I--all the way from CT to NC, stopping for the night in VA.
I've know John since 1971--he was a graduate student, working on his Ph.D. is psychology and I was a Social Service worker for the WV Dept of Welfare and Bern and I lived in Morgantown. John and I both went to St. Gabrial's mission, which met in the attic of our apartment. Bern was finishing her BFA at WVU after a year at Northeastern while I was at Harvard.
I've known Sherry since 1980, when I was Rector of St. Paul's in New Haven and she was a member there. She anGd Bern have been a member of 'Group' a women's group never larger than 6, for over 30 years. Sherry and her husband, Jack, are two of our best friends. In fact, John and Sherry and Jack are three people who are among both my and Bern's 'best friends'.
Driving for many hours on Interstate Highways are, in my opinion, one of the ways to bond deeply and to discuss things you wouldn't bring up without moving at high speed, just me talkin'.
I noticed that when Mejol and I went to West Virginia from Baltimore and back. We talked about things we would have never discussed about our lives and our childhood that we wouldn't have gotten to in several days sitting opposite each other.
Part of it, I think, is that you can't really make consistent eye-contact at 80 mph. It frees us up, in my thought, to go deeper than we would faster than we could have, or would have been willing to, looking at each other all the time.
Don't worry, I'm not going to go into those conversations. They are two personal. But they were theaputic and healing in many ways.
So, get into a car and drive fast with people you love for hours and hours. You might just find yourselves at a place you needed to get but haven't been able to....
Friday and Saturday, we traveled--Bern and John and Sherry and I--all the way from CT to NC, stopping for the night in VA.
I've know John since 1971--he was a graduate student, working on his Ph.D. is psychology and I was a Social Service worker for the WV Dept of Welfare and Bern and I lived in Morgantown. John and I both went to St. Gabrial's mission, which met in the attic of our apartment. Bern was finishing her BFA at WVU after a year at Northeastern while I was at Harvard.
I've known Sherry since 1980, when I was Rector of St. Paul's in New Haven and she was a member there. She anGd Bern have been a member of 'Group' a women's group never larger than 6, for over 30 years. Sherry and her husband, Jack, are two of our best friends. In fact, John and Sherry and Jack are three people who are among both my and Bern's 'best friends'.
Driving for many hours on Interstate Highways are, in my opinion, one of the ways to bond deeply and to discuss things you wouldn't bring up without moving at high speed, just me talkin'.
I noticed that when Mejol and I went to West Virginia from Baltimore and back. We talked about things we would have never discussed about our lives and our childhood that we wouldn't have gotten to in several days sitting opposite each other.
Part of it, I think, is that you can't really make consistent eye-contact at 80 mph. It frees us up, in my thought, to go deeper than we would faster than we could have, or would have been willing to, looking at each other all the time.
Don't worry, I'm not going to go into those conversations. They are two personal. But they were theaputic and healing in many ways.
So, get into a car and drive fast with people you love for hours and hours. You might just find yourselves at a place you needed to get but haven't been able to....
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