And the next morning, too - Tuesday - I awoke well before sunrise and was greeted by an almost luridly beautiful portrait, light draping down from an impossible sky. I went down onto the beach for my last Tai Chi, my feet leaving a little scrabble of footprints.
As I stood facing east, I suddenly heard a quick sizzle of sand behind me, and an animal flew by me - fox? dog? - racing toward the sunrise; he did not even give me any notice of his approach, and I was so startled that I did not capture him in my camera. Where he came from or where he was going I could only imagine; it seemed as if he was running into the sunrise itself, as if a bright door had been opened and he was trying to fly through it before it closed.
We broke our trip home into sections by traveling to Raleigh for the night to visit with Martha's aunt Lizette, who was so gracious in allowing us to stay here for so many weeks. Her 88th birthday is approaching, and partly in honor of that and to show our appreciation to her, we drove her to Kinston for dinner at the award-winning Chef and the Farmer restaurant, made popular by the PBS television show A Chef's Life. We had eaten there three years ago on a trip to Duck and had not forgotten how special it was.
Chef Vivian Howard enjoys creating new twists on Eastern Carolina favorites, like flash-fried collard greens (delicious). She has written:
"I often tell people that Ben and I had our first baby in June 2006. Naive but determined, we opened Chef & the Farmer with the hope that our restaurant might light a spark in our little town and help transition some of Eastern Carolina’s displaced tobacco farmers into food farmers. Since then, our restaurant has come to be known for thoughtful, creative cooking rooted in this region’s ingredients and traditions. I’m proud of what our first child has accomplished and excited for her future."
Although she was not at the restaurant while we were there, Vivian had left a nice birthday note for Lizette. We shared scallops, sea bass, those unusual flash-fried collard greens, and for desert Carolina Gold rice pudding and (of all things) marshmallow ice cream (also delicious).
And then the long journey back home, leaving Raleigh on Wednesday morning and driving in heavy multiple-lane rush-hour traffic. Driving like this does not come easy after weeks of becoming accustomed to two-lane roads and quiet rambles to Harkers Island and Swansboro and Beaufort. 18-wheelers thundered by, city drivers with nerves of steel cut back and forth in front of us - it was a relief to have diminishing traffic as we traveled west, and to see the soft outlines of the Blue Ridge rising ahead of us on the horizon, and then to climb Old Fort Mountain with popping ears, through Asheville and Brevard, finally arriving on that lovely winding two-lane road that we know so well: The Familiar! What a balm it is for sailors to see their port approaching.
And finally we arrived in Highlands, our beautiful little town, and greeted family and neighbors, and eased down our own road, into our own driveway, to see forsythia and hyacinth and daffodils blooming everywhere. Home.
No comments:
Post a Comment