| Wednesday, November 23, 2011 |
| Reconnecting |
Reconnecting…a good word, it nonetheless implies for me a disconnect, something once-connected that needs to be joined again. I could say that after more than three weeks on the road, I needed to reconnect with this lovely place we are blessed—and grateful—to call home. True enough. The larger truth, however, is that I needed to reconnect my heart with all that is lovely about this place: beyond storm-tossed, beyond sorrow, beyond all that has happened to these Outer Banks and to my inner landscape this year.
So, first, I went to the places most familiar: the beach accesses closest to Yellowhouse. Easy to get to after closing for the day, or for snatching fifteen minutes before opening. I went looking for Seaside Goldenrod, the beach’s nod to autumn, and found a nice sun-kissed stand in late afternoon when most of the beach was shadowed. “Fall back” means that I usually miss sunset now, since we are still open as the sun slips into the sound. This past week I spent a chunk of three days in Kitty Hawk, setting up for the annual arts and crafts show at the All Saints church, and that allowed me to go to a different sunset spot before 5 pm last Friday. While I was up that way, I checked the eagle nest but saw no activity. However, on Sunday morning a young eagle, I would estimate about three years old, overflew our yard as I was out walking our Westie: a gift of memory (but not on a memory card)! I’ve been telling every year’s new eaglets that I would be most honored to have one choose Colington for its long-term home in maturity. Maybe this was one I invited to come check out our neighborhood!
Being in Kitty Hawk reminded me of the gifts Pete and I received in abundance out west: being in new places and seeing very different vistas of the American landscape. Sometimes going to the familiar is comforting. Sometimes, though, the familiar can dull the senses. You go looking for the expected. One of my hopes this winter is to deliberately refocus on the Outer Banks by actions as simple as choosing different access points to sea and sound. We’ll travel together, as always. Meanwhile, here are some moments gleaned from a still-busy daily life over the past couple of weeks home.
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click for larger image | Seaside Goldenrod...not quite as brilliant in sunlight as aspen, but the brightest yellow on the beach this time of year. |
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click for larger image | Sunrays at Sunset...on the opposite horizon. Regular readers know what these are: Anti-Crepuscular Rays!! |
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click for larger image | Pete's daughter-in-law Judy called the other morning to alert me to a magnificent rainbow over the sound. I'm drawn to trees in a new way since our trip west, so I included the sunlit live oak. |
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click for larger image | Out of town company prompted us to take our first Hatteras trip since the new breach-bridge opened. The ocean was cranking beside the isolated north point of Oregon Inlet. |
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click for larger image | Looking back out the window at the new cut-through at Oregon Inlet that isolates what used to be the north point. |
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click for larger image | Sand hills. The dune grasses look spring-green, and the sea oats look blackened. A lot of the formations we saw out west were formed from sandstone, remnants of earlier dunes. |
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click for larger image | I kept going back to the car and switching lenses as the light changed: long, wide; wide, long. I call this, Just You and Me. |
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posted by eturek at 9:29 AM |
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