November 15

Here's what I'm talking about. November 15 - down at the beach; nearly 70 degrees; people more than half-nekked baking in the sun and me feeling foolish in long khakis and long sleeves. I rolled up those britches like Prufrock and got my feet in the sand; water slick and salty; big old pelicans riding the waves. Down the beach, past the baking beach-flies, I had it to myself. The painted ladies mostly shut down behind the dunes: their customers moved out for the season;  sun riding low in the sky. The pale half moon already up, winks at me, and says, "meet me later, baby, out back of the house, and then I'll show you something." Autumn at the beach, it's fine, so fine.

Coming Home to Roost

   I have recently become fascinated by the communal roosting habits of birds. Lest you think I’ve gone all science on you, I usually do this on my evening walk with no more equipment than a willingness to stand still and watch. When I lived in the mountains, I noticed birds in trees, but rarely observed how they got there. Coastal birds, however, make a production of this nightly event.
   I first noticed these rituals in a spectacular setting. I was returning to Cedar Island from Ocracoke on the 6 pm ferry. I recommend this trip. On top of the ferry, you can sit in a bowl of sunset that quiets your mind, softens your heart, and washes you in peace.

   As we passed a sandy spit of land just off shore from Ocracoke, I noticed that the air was crowded with white birds – shore birds, whose identification I did not know. A flurry of birds, close and far away, raced toward the sand bar at breakneck speed while calling out, “I’m coming. I’m coming.” It was as if someone was taking roll call and any latecomers would be locked out. The flying birds filled an area that took 20 minutes to pass in the ferry.
   Some birds were pure white; others wore additional brown patches. They distributed themselves by coloring to the left and right of the island. Each newcomer located his or her place and landed in less than a heartbeat to join the trembling carpet of squawking birds.
   When we moved to our new house, I discovered that egrets - Snowy. Great, and Cattle – roost around a small lake near the end of our street. When I walk the dogs around 5 pm, the white birds are already coming in for the night.
   These birds drift in leisurely, by ones or twos, like men dropping into the local bar after work. I believe they gather in what’s called a staging area nearby because I never see many birds in the air. They wait their turns. It’s quiet, and after a few minutes I am astonished to see how these great birds have filled the trees. A study in Mexico found that Snowy and Great Egrets crowd out other species from the tops of trees – a safer place to perch. I believe that’s true for my flock, and it’s odd to see those big boys hunkered down on spindly limbs.
   As each egret arrives, he arcs across the lake and floats to a pinpoint landing in the roosting site. Upon his arrival, the crowd croaks in unison, as if to say, “Hello, Fred,” readjusts their wings, and returns to nursing their beers. They repeat this for each landing bird.
   The roosting habits of vultures are, strangely enough, like a ballet in several acts. I first noticed them circling over the woods across the street, just as they do when they’ve located prey. I thought it unusual to see them in the same place for several successive evenings.
   One day on my morning walk, I saw the vultures sleeping in two dead trees: they are not especially early risers. The next evening, when I saw them circling, I went over to watch. Vultures are in no hurry to roost. They act as if they are checking out a new accommodation each evening and trying to get a consensus about its suitability.
   They first circle around the trees in a wide path, like jets in a landing pattern. You can see their dark forms approaching from a distance, much like the sea birds. Seldom flapping their wings, they catch the air in graceful swoops.
   They circle for a while, then land in their staging area – the woods next to the dead trees. Black bodies perch tentatively among the trees while their compatriots continue to circle.
   In a while, one or two will fly over to the roosting place. No one appears willing to move over, so the newcomers touch lightly on this spot then another, and then settle hunched over like the egrets. I think they are just checking out the beds as sometimes they return to the landing pattern for another try. Others then move from the staging area to the roost. I have never been able to make myself watch long enough to see all the birds settled, but their sleeping forms in the early morning suggest that they do.
   Vultures, like their names, are not pretty. Their work is not pretty, but their coming to roost is careful, graceful, and well worth watching.
   I saw a question posted on the Internet, “Why do birds go insane at night?” All this sound and fury, so different from their purposeful behaviors during the day, does look kind of insane. Researchers believe that their urgency and the ruckus they make is how communally roosting birds call their members home to a safe place and the warmth of the flock.
   Not all birds roost communally. Some of them, like humans, are loners and brave the night alone. I wouldn’t care to sleep alone in a tree vulnerable to cold and rain and predators that hunt. I prefer to find my way home at night, where it is safe and warm and someone will scoot over and call out, “Come over here. We saved you a place.”

Eating Down the Bones

  I have at last became an adult. It was a long time coming, but Saturday I ate a fish with the bones in it. Not only that, I cooked it myself.
   When I was about five years old, my father got a bone stuck in his throat at the dinner table. My mother was upset and anxious, and I developed a lifelong horror of small bones in my food. I'm certain it was a chicken bone, but fish became the object of my fear.
   Last week I discovered a wonderful family seafood market in Cedar Point. They park their boat right behind their house, and everything is fresh and local. (Can you believe that much of the seafood you eat here is imported? Boo! Hiss!) On my second visit, I wanted to try some local fish.
   Sea mullet was the fish de jour. I was dubious. Sea Mullet hasn't the allure of stuffed fillet of flounder, but the owner assured me it was his favorite fish. His wife cheerfully demonstrated cleaning and gutting the fish, but not one word about filleting. She did tell me how to cut slits across the fish so that the meat would fall easily away from the bone when cooked.
   Truthfully, I did not want to get a reputation as a fish-wimp, especially as I am working toward an image of "local" as opposed to "dumb-tourist." Like they wouldn't know! So, I smiled knowingly, took the fish as is, and pictured dumping mine into the garbage.
    I came home, cut the slits, dredged the fish into a mixture of flour and a bit of yellow corn meal, and plunged those suckers into hot oil. They obligingly sizzled and turned crispy golden brown, just as my instructor promised.
    I served them up to my incredulous husband, and timidly raised my fork.
To my infinite surprise, the tender white flesh fell obligingly away from the bones, and the fish was mild and sweet. I loved it, and survived!
   Yes, I should have faced this phobia long ago, and I regret the succulent whole fish I have avoided all those years. Now that I am living at the coast, I plan to make up for lost time.
    I am reminded of an occasion when I was at a family-style dinner. A man I know and had dated long ago was seated across from me. I sat there staring at the platter of beautifully cooked whole fish before me. My friend, deep in conversation with the person to his side, was calmly filleting his fish. When he finished, he smiled and quietly passed the filleted fish across the table to me. For me, this tops my list of truly romantic gestures in my life.
   Fish with bones.... what a concept. I'm ready for the Swansboro Mullet Festival.

What the World Needs

   Driving through Emerald Isle last week, I heard an interview with Jackie DeShannon on Terry Groce’s program on NPR. (That’s on the radio, folks, down among the low numbers). I hadn’t thought of this singer in years. Terry played Jackie’s hit record, “What the World Needs Now is Love,” a Burt Bacharach/Hal David song from 1965.

   I had to stop the car. The song broke my heart, and I cried. How foolish, I thought, but Jackie’s voice and that wonderful song loosed a flood of memories so intense, I lost all hope of maintaining composure. The song was an anthem of my youth in the 60s, and it brought back feelings that I had not visited in so long.
   We the “love generation” dared to believe that we could change the world. We thought we could bring peace to a country torn by war and generational strife. We thought we could bring love “not for just for some, but for everyone.”
   The music of that time, including Jackie’s song, fired the engines of change. From the quiet strength of protest songs and folk music to the relentless beat of Crosby, Stills, and Nash and the Rolling Stones, we knew, through our music, that we were a generation united and we had the power to change the world.
   For me, “What the World Needs Now,” embodied the music and the message that lived in my heart. It expressed what I wanted for my life and for the world. Jackie’s earthy voice builds from quiet statement to passionate pleading. I hear in her singing the hope we felt; the glory of dreams, and the unabashed belief of youth that anything is possible.
   Later, I walked out to the beach and stood looking over the ocean. It hasn’t changed. Waves crest and fall and travel to the shore. Delighted children venture out into the water, looking to watchful parents for their courage. It is a scene out of time… lacking, of course, the transistor radios that were our standard issue.
   But something is different: the songs have changed and so have I. I no longer believe that anything is possible or that I have the power to make it happen. We stopped a war, but it was just replaced by others. Our lives are stressed and angry, and we did not unite everyone through love.
   We, as a generation, hoped big. We marched and carried signs. We grew our hair long and argued with our parents, demanding the right to be different and to create a new order. But we did not change the world. To borrow a phrase, "We weren't defeated by the man, we became him."
   We failed our mission, and it breaks my heart to hear the song that reminds me so strongly of what we felt and what we believed.
   I don’t know what dream young people carry in their hearts these days. I wouldn’t presume. What’s peace and love anyway in the face of global warming? I know only that song can still awaken my heart and perhaps again inspire me to bring a little love to this world.
   “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”

The Man by the Side of the Road

I'm not sure if this is coastal, but I can't get it out of my mind. G. and I drove to Cedar Island Refuge a few Sundays ago. We turned left at an intersection in one of the small communities on the way... Davis, I think. It's a tiny place; one of many along the coast branded by the sea and fishing.

I can't help but wonder about these communities as we pass through; how they must have changed over the years as fishing declines as a way to earn a living and tourism inevitably invades. I wonder too if their legendary closeness and community identity have eroded.

I digress. As we made the turn, I saw a man lying on the shoulder of the road, right in the intersection. He lay motionless and non-reactive; his head cradled in the lap of a distressed man, who appeared to have stopped to help.

Behind the pair, another man talked urgently into a cell phone. Others looked on from across the road.

"Drunk," my husband surmised.

"I don't know," I said. "It seems unusual to me for a drunken person to pass out so near the intersection. He could be ill."

I thought about the scene for the rest of the day. I have reflected upon it since then.

My curious self wants to know more. The stricken man was weathered; my version of what a lifelong fisherman might look like. His clothes had seen many wearings, possibly many days of work. His face was a sick pale beneath his ruddy complexion; his eyes closed. He looked an anachronism cradled against the clean young man and spread out before the man in a polo shirt talking into his cell phone.

Did they know him? Was he someone they saw everyday? Was he a lifelong member of the community, their families telling stories of a long shared history? Was that the cause of their concern?

Or were they stangers? Good Samaritans compelled to stop by a man who could not be left lying in the road, especially on Sunday. Were their hearts broken open by this man's distress, or were they disgusted by a Saturday night drunk gone wrong?

Obviously, I don't know: I never will. I contemplate the potential richness of the first story, and I admit that I want that to be the genesis of the scene I witnessed. I worry that the second story is true, and the vignette I witnessed was no more than a temporary interruption in the lives of the men who stopped to help.

I worry that the man beside the road was without community, without people who knew him and cared whether he lived or died. I worry that he died.

Getting Underway

    I now live at the coast. We have abandoned ship in the mountains, and have set sail at the North Carolina coast. Love that nautical jargon!
    Our stuff - all our stuff - now temporarily resides someplace in Atlanta, and we are set to spend the summer at Emerald Isle, while our house is under construction. While living at the beach for a summer has great promise, I can't help but wonder if my furniture will recognize me when we are reunited?
    It's a time of transition, and I think life at the beach will facilitate my acculturation - getting my sea legs as it were.
    I don't think people are different, although there may be differences in the way coastal people relate to their environment as opposed to mountain people. Everything is so broadly open here, as opposed to being so hidden and tucked away in the mountains. Can't pee off the back porch here. Does that affects one's psyche? (Exposure, I mean, not the peeing) Are coastal people more open? Don't know.
   I'm primarily concerned about my adjustment to place. My sense of place, and my feelings of belonging in a place are so acute, I just plain wonder how I am going to feel about living beside the ocean, in a glaringly bright sand scape with a few trees. Everything just feels so exposed.
   I've made one adjustment already. I first thought of the landscape here as empty. I've adjusted the adjective from "empty" to "spare."
   It's a neutral palette, and not just in color. Wide beaches, wide skies, and wide waters are "spare" of intrusions.
   There is a lot of space to be filled -  either by your own thoughts or by those who put up a grandiose "Pepito Bismal" house, which can be seen from the moon and beyond. Possibly they have no thoughts to insert.
   I'm beginning to see that "spare" leaves a lot of possibilities for contemplation. A wide expanse lends itself to contemplation of both the very grand and the very tiny.... the size of the universe or the size of a grain of sand. (Oops, bordering on cliche here, but then a grain of sand is what we have).
    I can look up into an umbrella of stars more numerous than I could have imagined in my tiny opening in the canopy of mountain trees. Or, I can look down at the immense number of things (beings) in a square foot of beach. My perception of size is challenged by this place, and I have to find my place on the scale.
   Ah, the lessons begin.

The End of the Day

     This afternoon my Blue Heron returned. He caught my eye as I was doing something on the sun porch. He stood in the shallows of low tide, just beyond the pier. I've learned that he fishes here during low tide. He was so close, I wondered if he knew that I wanted to see him.
     He is a study in patience. I watched him for a half hour or more, as he slowly waded across a wide expanse of tideland.
    He moves with his own rhythm and grace. His careful eye studies the water as he follows his prey. He cocks his head, turns toward his goal and splash! His beak goes in, and he unfurls his neck to lift his fish high.

    His neck is so long, like a giraffe's. How does he see the fish from such a height and shoot that long neck into the water with speed and accuracy? Splash! One shot is all it takes. It's a miracle of timing. 
   While I watched Big Blue, the day changed into evening and sunset claimed my attention. The sun actually goes down over the water across the road, to my back from the pier where I stand. The reflection I see is more subtle than those fiery reds beyond the fishing boats in the west.
   A high, wind-swept bank of clouds had gathered above the tidelands. The sunset behind us painted them rose pink, purple, and blue. They were magnificent! It's a cliche' word, but they certainly were. These clouds were straight from "The 10-Commandments":  Charlton Heston could have easily emerged.
   The water was perfectly still. It shone with a mirror image of the sky - pink marble as slick as glass.
To the right, a grove of trees stood on a cleared point, their dark green tops bending toward the water like ladies with wind-blown hair. An early moon, nearly full, hung just above the trees. Translucent silver, it completed the scene like a sigh following a deep breath.

The Ones that Got Away

Fishing, I think, is about being still and quietly waiting, occupations for which I am characterologically unsuited.
Nevertheless, there is a pier outside, and I was determined to try for the fish, shrimp, and crabs, enthusiastically reported to be teeming in the water, waiting to be harvested. I envisioned a coastal dinner waiting for my husband when he returned from work.
  We stopped at Wal-Mart Sunday afternoon to purchase basic fishing equipment and a crab net. Crabbing: an activity so simple even a child can do it. For $87 I got rudimentary supplies, the crab net, a frozen concoction labeled "Bait Shrimp" and good advice from a kind and patient man, who seemed to genuinely hope that I would catch something.
   My mother always said that after supper is the best time to fish, so after supper, I dragged out the fishing equipment for G. to help me set up. An hour later, an interval which evoked strong profanity and the surgical excision of a considerable length of wadded up line, my usually mild-mannered husband offered to let me try his rod and reel. I've heard that night-fishing is also good.
   I baited my hook with some of the Bait Shrimp, and cast my line into the dark waters. "Now what?"
     "Now you wait," replied my husband.
      "How long?" "
      "Until somethiing bites it."
      "Hmmmm."
   I gave it my best. I restrained myself from reeling in my line to no more than four or five times. I waited and confined my whip smart repartee to whispering. I'll spare you the details, but I concluded that night fishing is no good, because it is too dark to read a book. I caught a lot of green, slimy stuff and gave up after 45 minutes. The bait was still on the hook. That last sentence should have been a red flag. Alas.
  This afternoon, I moved on to crabbing. After several trips to my computer and wading through a 12-paragraph thesis on this simple activity, I managed to get the durn net and bait set up. I flung the thing into the water, my chicken wing bait securely attached. I lay down on the pier in the sunshine with the dogs and peered through the clear water to watch the unsuspecting crabs approach. I wondered how quilty I would feel about plunging them into boiling water.
  I went back to the house for my book. We three, the dogs and I, stood on the pier, read three chapters and hauled it in. Repeat the preceeding sentence three times. Nada. Nothing had even nibbled the bait. I again snagged a large quantity of green slime.I left the net and the chicken wing on the pier. I read it is the smell that attracts crabs. I figure by Saturday, it should be ripe, and the damn crabs should have no trouble crawling up on the pier to find it..
   It is now 4 pm. I am drinking a glass of wine and contemplating the ingredients I will need to make a successful Bait Shrimp Marinara for my husband.

Awakening to Rain

Around 6 am, I heard the familiar sound of raindrops, splattering against the window. My signal to dive deeply beneath the the comforter for an extended Sunday morning sleep. Then the wind hit with a kind of Whomp! and our little, cottage suddenly became not so much water-sided as broadsided by water. One moment of raindrops, and then the earth rolled up her sleeves and pitched in to help out the sky with raining .
   I looked out across our little section of the big pond to see only gray. With no demarcation between gray sky and gray land, the world was upended. I felt like a diver, unsure between up and down.
   Sheets of rain flung themselves against the house, licked under the front door, and reverberated across the water beyond our pier. A foolish plastic chair launched itself from the deck and fell defeated against the railing. I saw what I had not seen before. This is not a house, but a houseBOAT.... at least I hope so. Our little finger of land was disappearing fast, the marsh reeds drowning, and that wind menacing. All this before coffee.
  Then it stopped. A pair of ducks landed and set about finding breakfast. No line of cars clogged the highway in route to safety. The water level remained below the pier. It was only a shower, not even a storm.
   I have yet no vocabulary for this place. No labels that that say "this is this and that is that." I am reduced to wildly misplaced cliches and weak-kneed perspectives.
  

My Blue Heron

     I have a new friend here in Swansboro. I think I will call him Big Blue. He is the Great Blue Heron (I looked him up in the Audobon Book), and he thrilled me in front of the house last evening.
     He caught my attention fishing for his dinner. He moved so slowly, lifting one mud- dripping foot above the water, and then, after a time, the other. I slowed myself long enough to watch, then, mirroring his movements, I edged my way to the pier with the binoculars. I feared that if I even breathed too hard, he would fly away, but he was too intent on his fishing to notice me.
    Patience does have its rewards.  As slow and careful as was his approach, his attack came swiftly and sure. He plunged his beak into the water, one shot, and lifted his prey into the air.... a wide, dinner plate-sized FLOUNDER! This was a literal can't believe my eyes moment. I had expected a minnow or some minor fish, but not for Big Blue. What a prize! He  lifted it triumphantly into the air, and then, more surprises, plunged it back into the water.
   For the next 10 minutes, he washed the flounder, dunking it repeatedly. He carried it to a spit of land, and placed it on the sand. Not good enough, he picked it up, waded back into the water, and washed it again. Then, while I blinked through the binoculars, he swallowed his flounder in one huge gulp.
   I am a longtime watcher of nature shows, and I have rarely seen anything more thrilling than this magnificent bird at work. I think it is the quality of being present that made the scene so wonderful... filled with wonder. 
     Please come back soon, Big Blue, you are my friend and better than television by far.

Today is my first day of living at the North Carolina Coast. We have rented a small cottage for the winter, which sits on marsh and water that is part of the White Oak River Basin in Swansboro. What appears to be a nondescript yellow building from the road is, in fact, a charming cottage with a big deck, which reaches nearly to the water, and a small pier. The back of the cottage is nearly all windows, and the view across the water is, well, breathtaking. I'm told there are fish, crabs, and shrimp to be caught from the pier, but not sure how its done. I tried calling up a few crabs this morning but succeeded only in rousing a few crabby neighbors.
  It is so odd, but the sun rises from across this water, when it appears to me that it should come up on the other side of the house. This jagged coastline, with its filigrees of land surrounded by water is the explanation. The ocean is nearby, but where? I definitely have to orient myself. Oh, did I mention the intense red/orange sunrise that fills the picture window in the bedroom and makes me feel that I am hallucinating when I open my eyes in the morning. Man, that scene is psychedellic!
   So far I have seen a large, grey, wading bird just off the dock. I would have called it a Great Blue Herron at home, but here I'm not so sure. I'm going to need a coastal bird book. He stood so still, then slowly waded through the water, looking for dinner I presume. His pace is so calming to watch.
   After breakfast, the dogs (Nicki and Teddy) and I drove out to Emerald Isle for our morning walk. It takes about 10-15 minutes to get to the beach. Let me say that again 10-15 minutes to the beach. I never in my life thought I would be able to say such a thing about the place I live.
   It was low tide, and the beach was impossibly wide, as it is on the Carolina coast, and nearly empty. Nicki, our Corgy mix, was ecstatic. She has this way of lifting her front paws up in a half jump when she is really happy. Teddy endured walking on a leash. He's a 7-1/2 lb. Poodle, and he is not amused by having to be leashed.
   It has been really cold, but today is slightly warmer, and not so bad on the beach with a jacket and gloves. This weekend should be better.
   No great insights as yet. I guess I am overwhelmed by being here, and just looking to see what is. See what is. That phrase is on my refrigerator, and I guess I'll have to make good on it.