Friday 12:34 pm
No early morning today. No beach sunrise. Perhaps tomorrow, our last possible opportunity. The boys have been at the water for such a long time, and no snacks. I hope they are not losing their minds with hunger.
I am not remotely excited to leave the beach; I might even miss our dilapidated mansion. The photos didn’t really indicate the level of neglect. She’s been rode hard and put away wet, The Hubs says.
I wish I had more deep beach thoughts to think today.
I have loved learning about the vegetation here. The loblolly pines and all its spindly long-leaved texture. The pine cones. The bay trees, their leaves spicy to the bite. The glorious sprawl of the live oaks, enticing and perfect for a climb.
And the cypress trees with their knees.
The cypress trees
have knobby knees that
help withstand the
sea storm’s breeze
Nutrition from the
swampy marsh is
stored for times when
weather’s harsh
So much nature. Two days ago a sea anemone, a translucent orb washed up on the shore, perfectly spherical until I dumped it into our pink bucket with some sea water and slowly, slowly, a mane of tentacles grew and started exploring, and then a tubelike probe out the other end obviously thinking about something but what?
Bits and pieces of horseshoe crabs, mostly tails with spiny hooks in neat rows.
And yesterday the dunes. Driving away from our beach down the long strip of doughnut shops, pizza places, and trinket marts, you turn your back on strip mall mania to park in the Jockey’s Ridge State Park lot. There’s a visitor’s center where you can look at displays from possibly the eighties about the science of sand dunes. Then you take the boardwalk out through the trees, climb a steep sandy hill bordered with pines and scrub up and up toward the blue sky, and wow, have you left the green earth behind.
The dune is enormous, covered in textured swaths of a sand so soft both children automatically kneeled and stretched out their arms across its surface.
The wind at the top of the mountainous dune is kite perfect, launching our red tailed octopus to the end of its string. It presses your clothes against your body with a gentle relentlessness as you look turn away from civilization and look out toward the bay. What’s coming? Who can say.
