Atlantic Beach

We have settled in comfortably already, our computers set up on the dining room table and two crooked little stacks of books on the coffee table. 

It's a warm and open space with sea-shell motifs scattered here and there and comfortable chairs and sofa.  And as with every oceanfront place we have ever stayed in the rooms are filled with light even on cloudy and windy days like this one.  The clock on the wall is stopped (dead battery most likely) and we have decided to keep it that way out of defiance of schedules and appointments.  Isn't there a song about this clock?

There are 90 condo units here but they are almost all vacant in January; we have sighted only two people outside, and there is only one car parked on our side of the building.  This is not the prime time of year for Atlantic Beach.

Our neighbors back home have sent us photos of the 8-inch snow that Highlands received, beautiful fluffy snow piled up on deck furniture, dogs out romping in it with snow-covered noses.  We escaped just in time, as we did last year.  And while I have always loved snow and part of me misses the experience, I know that there will be no running for many days in Highlands; the temperature here will be 60 in just a day or two.  We discovered last year how much we enjoyed being able to be active outdoors in January (the treadmill is not for me).  And of course the ocean is an ever-present and ever-changing attraction, the sound of the surf and its colors and surfaces always in motion.  This morning Martha noticed a huge ship on the horizon, a freighter coming south around Cape Lookout, its shape ghostly in the haze that is blurring the line between sky and ocean.

Martha has settled into a good book titled, appropriately, Sweet Salt Air, but I am restless; it always takes me a day or two to settle down.  So I go back to the grocery store for a few more supplies, braving the wild, wild wind that again is rocking the car and knocking over trash cans at the store.  I think on the Beaufort Wind Scale we might be in a Fresh Gale, on our way to a Strong Gale or a Whole Gale.  After lunch I go out in snow flurries, or rather billowing waves of snow blowing across the brown lawn below us, out toward the beach which I have not yet walked upon.  A few steps on the wooden walkway and I realize that I am on slick ice, so I turn and walk precariously back onto the concrete walk.

I have not bundled up properly and the walk back to the shelter of the condo is excruciatingly cold, the wind and snow stinging my cheeks.  It is such a relief to return to our sanctuary that I think my restlessness has blown away and I am ready to settle down to a book until a more temperate day.