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Would that I were there…
Topsail Beach, North Carolina.
Quote of the day: “Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don’t believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it’s good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.” — Andrew Solomon
Daily gratitudes:
Mourning doves
Comfortable boots
Proofreading
Liking how I look in the mirror
Finding bargains
Sometimes the light likes to play games…
Topsail Beach, North Carolina.
Quote of the Day: “When you encounter someone you were destined to meet the conversation will take flight as if it were on wings of angels, complete strangers confiding in each other as if you were lifelong friends.” – Kevin Hall
Daily gratitudes:
Wonderful books
My nieces
Walking
Jumani apples
False moons
But still, I felt compelled to publish this image of a storm looming over Topsail Beach a few years ago. Topsail weathered Sandy better than other parts of North Carolina, and I am sending blessing thoughts to all of you who are in the throes of the storm tonight.
Topsail Beach, North Carolina.
Quote of the day: ”You can either be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It all depends on how you view your life.” – Paulo Coelho
Daily gratitudes:
Storm coverage
Catfish
Accomplishing things
The future
A single flame rose
The view from the Jolly Roger Pier, looking south to the end of the island.
Topsail Beach, North Carolina.
Quote of the day: “Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” – Zora Neale Hurston
Daily gratitudes:
Pigeons with one white tail feather
Water
Goosedown pillows
The gentleness of falling leaves
Prayers for healing and comfort
Sunlight is magic. And so is the sea.
Topsail Beach, North Carolina.
Quote of the day: “Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us and those around us – more effectively. Look for the learning.” – Louisa May Alcott
Daily gratitudes:
Rooftop gardens
Reflections
People with a sense of humor
Bunnies
Poetry
At Two Suns, we had a few rogue sea oats that served as impediments to our path to the beach. There was much face-slapping when one of us would walk down the boardwalk and forget to hold them for whoever was following. As sea oats are protected – and beautiful – we chose to let them have their way.
Topsail Beach, North Carolina.
Quote of the day: “A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to
all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change.” – Earl Nightingale
Daily gratitudes:
Hedgehogs
Stuffed animals
Athletic beauty
The girls passing out beautiful cupcakes at 15th and Larimer as a random act of kindness – or a Random Act of Cupcakes
We are here at Topsail.
Our trip was loooooooonnnnnnngggggggg. We’ve taken late night flights before, but never a red-eye to get here. For some reason, it really took it out of us. We crashed immediately on arrival on Saturday, and really didn’t recover until yesterday when we checked into our rental cottage.
A crashed Kelsea.
The living room at Two Suns
We have seen a lovely sunset.
The edge of the sun
Rain.
Kelsea touches the rain.
And a rainbow.
Faint and lovely.
We waxed ecstatic over Annabelle.
A crashed Annabelle.
And opted not to walk on the beach to see the fam last night, prefering to avoid potential lightning strikes from an approaching storm.
Approaching storm.
We had some nice family time last night, but Kelsea and I stayed up way too late. It was surprisingly cool and gray today, so it was a good day for hanging out and reading on the porch. Dinner is cooking as I type. MKL arrives tomorrow.
As the saying goes, “God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.”
Kelsea and I are off to North Carolina tonight, leaving the kitty and house in capable hands. E-Bro and the fam are coming on Sunday. MKL will join us on Tuesday. For the first time since Kelsea was born, we are staying in a different cottage – one called Two Suns.
Two Suns from the front
It’s only about 10 houses north of “our” house, but it’s amazing how different that makes both the view and the energy.
Two Suns from the back
When I first started going to Topsail, we stayed in a little tiny house called “The Willard”. I remember the night we first arrived. It was unmarked, we had no idea if we were in the right place, and a hurricane was passing by. It’s not called by that name anymore, but it’s still there and still tiny, though it has been fixed up some. I suggested to Kelsea that we stay there this year, but we decided we wanted to be south of the Jolly Roger Pier.
Once when I was younger than Kelsea, and once again when I was about her age, we couldn’t get “our” house, and so we stayed elsewhere. It was interesting and different, but we still liked “our” house best. I am thinking that will be the case this time, especially since we don’t have a front porch on Two Suns, and Kelsea loves to hang out on the front porch in the afternoons, reading and watching the world go by where the sun is not so ripe and flaming. She’ll have to make do with the side porch at this house. I guess she can play sentry at the top of the stairs.
A change of scenery is never a bad thing, and my photos will have a different perspective, which I hope we will all enjoy.
Having MKL join us is a change as well, since no one else has stayed with us since my parents died, and ex-Pat didn’t even come with us most years. MKL will be meeting the rest of my family for the first time. In my old-fashioned Southern way, I am hoping for my brother’s blessing as head of the family. It’s been two years since I’ve seen E-Bro and the fam, so I think we’re all prepared for changes all around, especially in the kids.
I’m considering whether we want to make time for a side trip this year. Last year’s trip to Bald Head Island didn’t work out as quite the fantasy I’d hoped for, but it certainly was interesting. As MKL has never been to North Carolina, I’d love to be able to share a little more of my home state with him.
Possibilities for a day trip are Moore’s Creek, a Revolutionary War battlefield not too far from Hampstead, or perhaps the Arlie Gardens, where Kelsea and I had… technical difficulties on our last visit, way back when she was three, or maybe even Swansboro. After all, it’s been two years since I’ve made any grievous errors getting lost on the military base. I’m pretty sure they miss me.
But you won’t have to miss me, as Two Suns has wireless, and I promise to keep you posted. (Get it? Posted? HA!)
Bon voyage!
I can get homesick for a memory, not a place.
Does that sound strange?
Homesickness is fairly rare for me anymore. It happens mostly in spring, when I know that North Carolina is turning green and blossoming while Colorado is still buried under a winter shroud.
But sometimes, it is triggered by a visual, like it was this morning. The bus stopped at one of its usual stops on Hwy. 287, and across the street, a Mo-Po-Po (translation: a police officer on a really cool Harley) was giving some poor guy a ticket, which was not a good way to start his day. At the edge of the small hill on that side of the street is a small pond (more of a giant puddle) and at the edge of the puddle are cattails.
My Mother loved cattails, so I loved cattails. Their brown velvet casings are so soft, and the down that emerges from them is like a blessing, an indicator that it is time for this lovely thing to move on to its next phase of life (or death).
I remember at Topsail, towards the North end of the island at the curve just before the big bridge, stopping at the side of the road for my Mother to burrow into the marsh and cut cattails to take home. They would live for a long time, dried in an old bronze-toned vase with dragons etched and curling up its sides.
I think I have that vase somewhere.
And at Buxton, where a walk on the Maritime Forest Nature Trail in the chill of a beachside March dusk would yield cold fingers and runny noses, she would see cattails, but never disturb them, as the Nature Trail was a protected area. (Though she would snitch a few leaves from the Bay Laurel tree to ensure she had enough to carry her through the year.)
The sight of cattails this morning made me homesick.
We are going home very soon, to a different beach house for this one year, which will be good but strange, and we will start some new traditions, and welcome MKL into some old ones. And I will drive by the curve in the road where the cattails live, and remember.
Image aptly entitled “Fuzzy Corn Dog on a Stick” by Vagabond Shutterbug from www.flickr.com
A little colorful shade is a nice thing on the Jolly Roger Pier at Topsail Beach. I’m setting my prayers and intentions that my circumstances will allow me to go back “home” this year.
Topsail Beach, North Carolina.
Quote of the day: “Simply be who you are, do what you do best, be where you are called by joy, and let life work its magic on your behalf.” – Alan Cohen
Daily gratitudes:
The surprise peacock in the field this morning
Cows
Hope
Homeless leprechauns
My tartar sauce
