We had been greeted in the hotel lobby by the hotel cat, a little tabby named Sally. We have a similar tabby in our local hardware store but I have never seen one in a hotel before. A sign in the lobby explained who she was:
Sally made herself thoroughly at home in this wonderful place for a cat, lounging on the plush lobby furniture, grooming herself meticulously as only cats can do, and napping in front of a warm fireplace hung with a single red stocking bearing her name and a paw print.
"Doesn't she try to get onto the breakfast bar?" I asked the next morning. (Eggs, bacon, sausage patties). "She prefers to hunt for her foot," we were told, and evidently she often brought her little trophies to the courtyard doormat, which I thought might have been a surprise for some guests.
We continued on to Raleigh on Friday and had a nice visit with Martha's aunt over lunch. It is she who is so graciously letting us stay in her condo, and we told her how much it meant to get away during the winter months on this journey that we are calling a Sabbatical rather than a vacation. Books to read, poetry (and blogs) to write, re-creation, re-connection, windy deserted beaches to walk and run along.
A light, cold rain splattered the windshield most of the way from Raleigh to Kinston, but then it cleared off almost entirely and it seemed as if the sun might try to shine. We provisioned ourselves and unpacked as the wind picked up again and the storm approached.
In the night we heard the same peculiar, rattling, musical wind-chime-like sound that I remembered from last year, perhaps wind moaning through the metal deck-railings all around us, and the salt tang and presence of the wild ocean surf invisible in the darkness before us.
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