Such Treasures

It was still raining this morning, which is not a bad thing at all at the beach when there are books to read.  But we both badly wanted to run this morning, and we did not particularly like the idea of getting soaked.  So we waited it out; I went to the Recreation Center where there is a large, adequate weight room, and Martha did some shopping.  It was 11:00 a.m. by then and we realized that the rain had stopped completely, so we hurried back, tied on running shoes, and got moving.

I thought it might be good to run some tempo miles at the pace I hoped to run in the upcoming 5-K on Saturday.  So after a little warm-up I started off fast, right out of the door, and completed two miles at a nice clip.  Martha got started earlier than I did, and ran to Fort Macon and back for a total of five miles, farther than she had planned.  I slowed my pace when I reached the Fort and went out onto the beach.  I already knew that low tide was at 11:30 a.m., and so a return run along the ocean would be just perfect.

The beach between the Fort and the picnic area is the widest I think I have ever seen, perhaps 200 meters, smooth and flat as a pancake.  What a joy it is to run here, the channel markers out on my left, and then the open Atlantic Ocean, as far as the eye can see, wave after wave breaking gently.  It was still overcast, and the colors seemed to be trapped in that spectrum between brown and gray and pale blue, as if  an artist had found his water painting tin only contained these colors.  But beautiful pictures can be painted with limited colors, perhaps even more so. 

Half-way back, someone had carried a Christmas tree, which had been placed up against the dunes to stabilize them, down onto the beach and stood it upright in the sand.  If I had not been trying to keep up a good pace, I suppose it would have been nice to hang little scallop shells from its branches with threads of seaweed, a further re-purposing of this festive tree.

I keep looking for sand dollars, like the one I found on this beach last year, but all I saw was broken shells, bits and pieces, and I came back penniless, with nothing to place in the offering plate we keep in the center of the table to collect such treasures.

Dangerous Money

That was the title of the sermon, preached by Powell Osteen at the First United Methodist Church, to which we were glad to return this morning.  As I have said before in this blog, Powell is a gifted preacher, and this church has made us feel welcome as mere visitors (although sadly we no longer qualify for the loaf of sweet bread given to first-time visitors.)  "This is going to be an uncomfortable sermon," he announced.  "It reminds me of a parishioner who once said, 'Preacher, now you've stopped preaching and gone to meddling!'"  The fifth chapter of James:

"Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.  Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.  You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence."

I have tried to stay away from politics in this little blog, a difficult task in this day and age of POTUS Trumpus, but for some reason our Head of State came to mind immediately - the Chief Chiseller himself in all his sordid glory!  But Powell stayed away from the White House (and Mar A Lago, too), and so will I.

It was raining when we awoke this morning, it was raining on the way to church, and it was still raining after church.  But Martha had found something perfect for a rainy day:  the final matinee performance at the Carteret Community Theater of  Hello Dolly, a musical comedy that I had never seen in my life.  My spotty education for some reason overlooked the musical comedy genre.  All I knew about Hello Dolly was the big song in the middle, sung by Carol Channing and Bette Midler and so many other Broadway stars.

Well hello, Dolly
Well hello, Dolly
It's so nice to have you back where you belong
You're lookin' swell, Dolly
We can tell, Dolly
You're still glowin', you're still crowin'
You're still goin' strong

 
Now I know the context for that catchy song, which I have been unable to get out of my head for two days.  And there are some other lovely songs, like "Ribbons Down My Back."  The performance was far better than we had expected, and took place in that fine venue on Arendell Street, the same roomy theater where we saw Delbert McClinton play last year, with a cast of 23 and an orchestra of nine, and Dolly herself played by the appropriately well-endowed and flamboyant Kristy Boccia.

What an interesting parallel, we both said after the performance, between the sermon we had heard Powell deliver this morning and the Scrooge-like Horace Vandergelder and gold-digging Dolly Levi, determined to marry a "half millionaire."  "And on those cold winter nights, Horace," Dolly chides, "you can snuggle up to your cash register.  It's a little lumpy, but it rings."

But as in all musical comedies - that quintessential American art form that I was reluctant to embrace for so long (all that dancing and prancing and swinging of hats) but now have come to appreciate for being silly, corny, witty, and thoroughly entertaining - all turned out well.  Those two guys really did kiss a girl, and Dolly got her man.  Dolly Vandergelder, preacher and meddler.

The Abundance of the Sea

It was a perfect day for a long run - the skies overcast, the temperatures in the 50s.  It was the first opportunity we have had to run since last Sunday afternoon, and it felt good to loosen up legs cramped by travel.  I felt a little clumsy and awkward at first (as if I had not run in six days and had driven 1500 miles), but after a mile or two things smoothed out and we both had great Saturday morning long runs - six miles for Martha, ten miles for me.  When I entered my mileage in my running log, though, I realized that my weekly mileage this week would be exactly the same as my daily mileage. 

Still, it is good to celebrate milestones.  I even picked up the pace in the last mile, the Atlantic Ocean at my left elbow, the beach wide and smooth, strengthened by the knowledge that Jane and Bill were recovering well and that we would be here for some time now, settling in and enjoying this wonderful place.

The only plan for the rest of the day was to stock up on necessities at the grocery store and at Blue Ocean, our go-to fish market for truly fresh local seafood (see January 18 post).  There was such an abundance of seafood to choose from, laid out on ice, priced by the pound.  So hard to choose!  (We had scallops again)

"Then you shall see and be radiant; 

your heart shall thrill and exult, 

because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you . . ."

 - Isaiah 60:5

Winterfeast

The last time we stayed at Big Mill, two weeks ago, there was snow on the ground.  This morning there was no snow, but the fields behind the house were white with a heavy frost, and there was a skim of ice on the decorative pond outside our room.

Like many of the area farms, Chloe's 200 acres still produces soybeans, cotton, and tobacco.  Figs, blueberries, and strawberries are served when they are in season, and breakfast included some of her homemade strawberry jam, which was the best I think I have ever tasted.  As usual, we were greeted with a personalized breakfast menu.

This was a good way to start off the final leg of our journey to New Bern, where for the second year in a row Martha had had the foresight to purchase tickets to the annual Winterfeast, a benefit for Tryon Palace, long in advance.

We had lunch at Morgan's tavern, as we did two weeks ago, and then we spent all afternoon walking around New Bern.  Martha spent some time in the shops on Middle Street, while I wandered a little farther afield and visited the beautiful Christ Episcopal Church, surrounded by tall Spanish-moss-draped trees.

A docent was there, an intelligent woman who came to New Bern 18 years ago as a fundraiser for the N.C. History Center.  She was also an officiant in the church, and she gave me a most informative tour.  The church is proud of its solid silver communion service (she said it is so heavy you have to hold the chalice with two hands), its oversized Book of Common Prayer, and a stunning King James Bible, all gifts from King George II in the 18th century.  The Bible was particularly valuable, she said, because of its typos; the heading for the Parable of the Vineyards in the 20th chapter of Luke, for example, reads "Parable of the Vinegar," and the speculation was that the printer had been imbibing a little too plentifully of the fruits of the vineyards.

Martha and I met up on Middle Street in an outdoor store called Surf Wind and Fire, and it was there that she received a phone call from her mother telling her joyfully that the report had come back from the lymph node biopsy and it was negative.  This was the best news we could have received!  Now it seemed as if we could truly resume our Sabbatical, knowing that Jane Lewis was free from cancer and also that Bill Lewis was recovering.  We called several people to let them know and were glad to find out that Lizette, too, was on the mend.  So many answered prayers!

Winterfeast was something to experience!  We sampled shrimp and grits, jambalaya, and clam chowder out in the main exhibit hall, but just as we had noticed last year, the main focus was oysters, which were being shucked and slurped down with tabasco sauce in a huge tent out back.  Fires were going down by the river, steaming the tasty little mollusks, which were then hauled up to the tent in 5-gallon pails by young running men.

The tent was filled with the clatter of oyster shells being dropped through holes in the tables post-shucking.  What a sight and sound, there in the dim light of the tent.

We made the final leg of the journey to Atlantic Beach after this Feast, the welcome sight of the wide Atlantic Ocean greeting us, giving thanks for safe travel for many across the rough seas.

Sabbatical Resumed

Six days after my last post, and 1500 more miles on our vehicle, we are on the road again to Atlantic Beach.  We had left here last Saturday, spent the night in Winston-Salem, and then arrived in Highlands on Sunday.  On Monday, we took Jane Lewis for her Pre Op, and then returned to Mission Hospital on Tuesday for her surgery.  Her capable surgeon, Dr. Harkness, removed the tumor (by lumpectomy) and three lymph nodes,which will be tested to ensure that the cancer has not spread; results are expected in a few days.  By Wednesday morning, the patient was doing well, and so on Thursday morning, at the urging of Jane, we were on the road again.  While we were en route, we learned that Bill Lewis also had a successful procedure at St. Joseph to fragment his kidney stone and remove the stent placed there the week before Christmas.

It was a good day for traveling - blue skies but chilly temperatures.  The news, as we continued to check in, was good, and it seemed as if this good news was like wind in our sails, hurrying us across the wide rough ocean of I-40 and finally once again into our little harbor, the Big Mill B&B.  It was after dark when we arrived, and Chloe's chalkboard greeted us on the front porch:

The only room available had been the Mardi Gras room, new to us, but we found it to be as unique and quirky as her other guest rooms, decorated in the style of New Orleans.

Chloe provides such lovely little touches!  I had left my reading glasses in the car, but Martha spotted these glasses on top of a local cookbook:

The little tag attached to it read, "For our baby boomer friends to borrow."  We sat in front of the fireplace for awhile reading, thankful for surgery that has gone well and a return journey almost completed.

Clam Chowder Cook-off

Today was our last full day here; we will start back to Highlands tomorrow in order to take Jane Lewis to Asheville on Monday for her Pre-Op and on Tuesday for her surgery.  As the time approaches, everyone is praying that the surgery goes well.  We are also praying for Lizette's recovery from pneumonia and a pulmonary embolism, as well as for Artie for his high blood pressure and Susan for her influenza.  So many prayers.  If all goes well with Jane's surgery and with Bill's kidney stone removal on Thursday, we hope to be back here a week from now.

Since we will be on the road for two days, and then driving back and forth to Asheville next week, we may not have an opportunity to run again for several days.  So we made good use of the clear skies and temperatures in the 40s and ran down to Fort Macon this morning, picking our way through snow and ice remaining in the shady stretches of road.  Martha is up to five miles now and plans to move up to six miles next week; I added some extra distance and logged eight miles, my longest run this year.

This afternoon, we drove over the bridge to Morehead City and then over another bridge to Beaufort, a place we enjoy visiting while we are here.  Snow still lingered here and there in shady places.

Beaufort is such a comfortable little town, walker-friendly, with beautiful old historic homes lining one side of Front Street, and along the waterfront on Taylor's Creek a long boardwalk with unique inns and restaurants.

Our destination was the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center, where the annual Clam Chowder Cook-off was being held, a fund-raising event for the N. C. Maritime Museum across the street.  Martha had wisely bought tickets, limited to 100, long before the event.  It filled up quickly with hungry chowder-eaters like ourselves who sample and then judged between four different chowders and four different corn breads.  It was a wonderful event! - friendly people, delicious food, and an interesting venue here in the Watercraft Center which is still in operaiton.

It was hard to choose between them, but we did the best we could, and stuffed our votes into the ballot box on the way out.

Now tonight we see from our balcony a new moon in the western sky, fingernail thin, curved into a bow and resting on its side in a star-speckled sky.

"New moon, drift on

In the generous tropical sky

With your big black sail."

Snowbound at the Beach

This morning I am posting pictures of snow, a sight I have never before seen here at the beach.  We both awoke during the night and saw a dusting on the lawn between here and the pool.  By morning's light, we could see about an inch - such a strange sight to see stretching out before us, clinging to the dune vegetation and the rough triangular bark of the palm trees, whiter than the beach sand!

I took a few tentative steps, thinking I might be able to take some more pictures from the walkway, but I discovered that there was a solid sheet of ice under the snow; I could barely stand up.

Fortunately, Martha had heard the forecast yesterday while she was out shopping, and had stopped at Friendly Market and at Blue Ocean Market, our two go-to places in Morehead City, to "stock up."  The seafood is as fresh as I have ever seen in Blue Ocean, and the owners actually catch most of it themselves.  When we were in there last week buying scallops, a young man was putting out trigger fish in the icy bins.  "That looks like it's still moving!" I said.  "A little," he admitted.

So we are not going anywhere today.  We are well provisioned with more scallops, lobster bisque from Friendly Market, and good books to read.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.” 
 - Emerson

Except for that radiant fireplace, we have all that we need.

O Tannenbaum

Conditions were ideal for running this morning, overcast and not much wind, temperatures in the low 40s.  So Martha and I both headed out toward Fort Macon again.  It is a great place to run, with its bike lane on both sides and low traffic.  From our condo to the restrooms/water fountain at the Fort and back again it is almost exactly five miles.

I am so proud of Martha!  For several months, she has been practicing a series of exercises first thing in the morning using a set of four DVDs she found through Prevention magazine, and combined with an even more healthy diet than we have been using for many years - lots of avocados for example - she has lost an incredible twenty pounds, and also become much stronger.  That has made a significant impact on her running.  The age-old, tested formula for weight loss in a runner is this:  two seconds per mile per pound - that is, down to the optimum weight (which Martha has now attained).  Translated into time, twenty pounds means 40 seconds per mile she can expect to gain in a race.

I am on a similar diet and I have also, with an occasional fluctuation of a pound or two, reached my optimum weight - what I weighed when I have stood on the starting line of most of my marathons.  Martha has the edge, though - she weighs far less than I do, and she is younger than I am.  In races this year I expect her to dust me pretty thoroughly!

Martha is still building her base after injuries this year, so she decided to run the five miles to Fort Macon and back.  I decided to apply some interval training at my usual place, the rest area halfway to the Fort, where there is a straight, flat, little-trafficked place to run along the edge of a parking lot, which I calculate to be about an eighth of a mile.  Even without the measured quarter-mile splits to which I am accustomed in Highlands, I can apply the same intensity, rest, run back again, rest, etc.  I begin at the YIELD sign and sprint down the straightaway.

And at the end, I click the lap button on my watch at this small, brown, knee-high wooden sign:

Yes, PLACE CHRISTMAS TREES HERE!  This is where all the holiday trees in the area are recycled, thrown into tall stacks, sometimes still wearing a little red bow or stray piece of tinsel.  Under these hundreds of trees, children opened presents on Christmas morning a mere three weeks ago:

"O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
How lovely are thy branches."

When I finished six intervals, I knew in my legs that I had done my best.  I stood by this stack of trees, the pure essence of the fragrance of Christmas, and breathed deeply.  Two young men were loading some of them into a big State Park truck, preparing to carry them down to the beach where they would be carefully arranged, trunks toward the windward side, stabilizing sand dunes and trails through the park.  The sound of loud rock music was coming from the truck radio.  "Hey," I hollered;  "You're supposed to be playing Christmas carols!"  One of them thought for a second, grinned, and said, "Those are Christmas carols!" 

On the way back to the condo, on weary legs, a few stray drops of rain fell on my head out of a mostly-blue sky.  I decided to grab my phone to go back and take the foregoing pictures, and Martha was coming into the parking lot just as I was driving out.  "I hope you weren't coming to get me because of a few drops of rain," she told me later.  Hah!  No way.

Late in the afternoon, I took a walk westward on the beach to the fishing pier; the wind was from the north and had picked up a bit since this morning,

 I gathered some broken sand dollars along the way, and watched a single sandpiper darting in the surf.  These two pelicans winged silently past, heading due east.

And in the west, behind me as I returned to the condo, I could see gathering clouds moving in, thick and dark.

According to the weather forecast, these clouds hold six inches of snow, because of which they have already reportedly called off school for tomorrow.  We shall see!  Tomorrow I may be posting pictures of snow on the walkway to the beach . . .

The Aquarium

The dune-top deck was covered in ice, so I was forced to do my morning Tai Chi under cover of the condo, protected from ice but not from the prevailing wind that had turned around entirely and was now coming in from due north, rattling the palm trees and bending the dune grass over sideways.

It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which our President celebrated, I understand from the Fake News, by playing golf for the 94th time this year at one of his country clubs.  But the N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores observed the holiday as it always does, with Free Admission Day for all, regardless of race, color, or creed.  So we spent the morning wandering around one of the nicest aquariums we have ever seen, packed with families, children laughing and gazing in wonder at fish, amphibians, serpents, and otters, all in tanks that I realized, as I crouched to take photos, were constructed at a child's-eye height.

This large depiction of Hokusai's famous The Great Wave off Kanagawa, which is in fact the mouse-pad I use every day, greeted us as we entered.

The tanks in ghostly lighting contained vast amounts of fish, fish of every species, swimming around and around, much to the delight of children standing on tip-toe and peering in to see fish from their perspective, on their level, so close they reached out and tried to touch them.

The sting ray tanks, where adults and children both can touch these creatures as they slowly float around the tank, flapping their extended wings like underwater birds, was especially packed with throngs of children.  How often do you get to touch a sting ray?  We could not get close.

As for myself, I was most amazed at the sheer variety of fish, of every conceivable shape and color, as if an artist with an inexhaustible palate had decided to create an underwater world, and never reached an end to his infinite imagination.

This underwater scuba-diving creature was especially entertaining.  Down at the bottom of a huge tank containing many species, including sharks, he would place the palms of his hands on the glass so that we in the other world outside could press our hands to his.  A little boy was inexplicably frightened by this.  The diver gestured to him to "come here," but he backed away in alarm.  Creatures in tanks at the aquarium are not supposed to do that!

How inexhaustible is the mind of a Creator who could have imagined fish like this, be-decked in feathery fins, a fan dancer of a fish.

At last we found our way back to the entrance and left the crowds of children behind.  We realized that we had not had real seafood yet, out here by the Atlantic Ocean, so we decided to have lunch at a new place for us that we had learned about at the Blue Ocean on Friday night when we had stopped to buy scallops, the "Shuckin Shack" in Morehead City.  They may be forgiven the dropped "g" because everything was absolutely delicious:  charbroiled oysters, shrimp sliders, blackened mahi sandwiches, and hush puppies and cole slaw.
.

While we were eating lunch at a table by the windows, we heard the loud whistle of a train, and a single locomotive engine came rumbling down those railroad tracks right in the middle of Arendel Street; we had never seen this before, although we have heard train whistles at night from our condo.

After lunch we stopped at Parson's General Store, which has been in operation in Morehead City for 33 years.

Words of wisdom are all around us, and between the jars of preserves and the quilts and the beach souvenirs I came upon corny little signs, pithy sayings that seemed to strike a chord:

Yes, we can weather anything!  So powered by oysters and hush puppies we decided, in the afternoon, to go out for a run down the road to Fort Macon in a combined stiff breeze and sunshine, so that in the shade it was a little chilly but in the stretches of sunshine it was warm and lovely.

We settled in after our run, showering and getting "cozy" and preparing to enjoy a dinner salad prepared by Martha.  I realized it was nearly time for sunset, so I hurried down to the dune-top deck that this very morning had been covered in ice but now was ablaze with the setting sun.

This beauty lingered for a long time afterward, reflected in the western clouds, like the memory of something wonderful and unique that warms the heart a long time afterward.

Sunday at the Beach

All night we heard that peculiar roaring sound that the wind makes as it howls through the metal balconies of this condo buildings; it rises and falls in pitch and volume as the wind speed changes, a ghostly accompaniment to the roaring surf when the wind picks up.  A man in the elevator one floor above us asked if we knew what that sound was last night, and I explained; he seemed intrigued.  It made me feel like an "old hand" with intimate knowledge about this condo and the elemental parts of the world of a barrier island.

Martha did not take a photo of me dressed for morning Tai Chi - I was clad in as many layers as I could find, and once or twice the wind threw me off  balance.  After breakfast we prepared for church services at the First United Methodist Church in Morehead City, where we have worshiped nearly every Sunday since our first visit two years ago.  That was a memorable visit!  We were the surprised beneficiaries of the Bread Ministry, a sweet loaf of bread presented without fanfare to all first-time visitors who raise their hands, delivered in a little blue canvas bag with information about the church.   Rev. Powell Osteen customarily walks down the aisle before service, greeting everybody, not missing a single soul, and last year he peered at me and said, "I think I recognize you from last year;" so we knew that we would never again qualify for this loaf of bread while this man with such a long memory was walking the aisle.  And what a treasure he is!  I have heard many sermons in my lifetime, but Powell is a once-in-a-lifetime preacher, each sermon an absolute gem that students of homiletics in any religion should listen to with appreciation.

This is a warm and loving church, and no doubt these Presbyterians would join it if we lived here year-round.  It is filled with children and families, and it strives to live as the final words of the service in the bulletin declare, after two angelic acolytes have processed up the aisle, lit the altar candles, and then recessed, transferring the flame back to the candlelighters:  CARRYING THE LIGHT OF CHRIST INTO THE WORLD.  

The scripture was the second chapter of James, and Powell wove a beautiful little sermon about the need to live out a Christian's faith:  "Show Me."  After the service I went to FUMC's Facebook page and scrolled through over 500 photos, looking for one of the church - photos of families and children and fellowship time and dinners and playground - but found not a single one of the building in which this vibrant church meets.  So this is the building, from my bulletin, folded so that a cross appears in the background.

And today my thoughts are thinking about this Cross and about mortality, about life and death, and are saddened terribly because we learned that our friend and neighbor Cindy Soderstrom died this morning, at the same time that I was sitting in a pew in this church, singing the verses of "Come, Thou Font of Many Blessings."  Cindy had been in the ICU at Mission Hospital since December 27, and we have prayed for her every day since then.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Bill Soderstrom in the coming days.  As our former Pastor Lee Bowman always said at the end of a service:

 

"Life is short,

And we do not have much time

to gladden the hearts of those who

make the journey with us.

So… be swift to love,

and make haste to be kind.

And the blessing of God,

who made us,

who loves us,

and who travels with us

be with you now and forever."

What Else Should I Have Done?

It rained overnight - we could hear it beating against the sliding-glass doors through the night - and this morning dawned cool and clear, not a cloud in the sky.  The sun was already bright when I went out to the dune-top deck again.  There was a strong breeze out of the southeast, and birds were twittering in the brush next to the deck.

Martha decided to take a day off from running, but I knew I needed some long runs if I intended to run that half-marathon I was eyeing seven weeks from today.  So I prepared for the stiffer wind and the cooler temperatures with heavier shirt and gloves and headed north on Fort Macon Road.  With the wind at my back, it was so warm I considered taking off my shirt again, but when I turned around at Fort Macon and started heading south on the beach (still low tide), I was thankful for the heavier shirt and the gloves.

As I ran out to the Morehead City Channel, I stopped in my tracks as I saw a huge freighter, the Aurora, coming into the harbor.  This ship had crossed many miles and was finally finding rest here (as I was), accompanied by a tugboat and two small Coast Guard boats, as if a big draft horse was being led into the stable by tiny lapdogs.  It amazes me that a chunk of steel this huge can float on water and not sink to the bottom.

A man and his son were fishing there on the edge of the Channel.  "He's been begging me all week," the father said when I stopped to talk.  He said he was hoping to catch some drum or some sheepshead, and I wished him luck.  I always stop to talk to fishermen, asking in the morning what they hope to catch, and in the afternoon what the ocean has given up to them; it seems to be a time-honored thing to do, to simply throw a baited line in the waters and wait for a bite, and I honor all of these anglers out here on such a windy day.

 “Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing

that it is not fish they are after.” 

– Henry David Thoreau

Next I passed a young couple, man and wife, with what appeared to be twins, each of them carrying a tobogganed and bundled little tyke in a front facing baby carrier.  I wondered if these babies would always somehow hold in the back of their memories this cloudless, brisk day on the beach.  And then there was a young man throwing his dog a plastic yellow toy - this place must be heaven to a dog! - and he retrieved it, ran past him, and came to stand at my feet.  "Hey, buddy," I said, and tried to take it from him and throw it.  But he decided not to take up with a stranger and returned to his owner.

All along the way back, the ocean had thrown up piles of sea foam, which stood in little piles scattered along the edge of the water, little mounds of soapsuds quivering in the wind, and then suddenly sending out some smaller pieces of foam scurrying across my path like sandpipers.

At last I saw the familiar landmark of these colorful pastel-colored houses just up the road from our condo, like a box of crayons.

And then our condo building.  Six miles - not much of a "long run," but the best I could do today.  I stopped my watch and walked up to the dune-top deck where I had practiced my Tai Chi this very morning, stretched, and sat in the sun for awhile.

What a glorious waste of time, to spend all morning running on the beach, seeing what I could see, talking to fisherman, watching the sea foam scurry away before me in the wind.  It reminded me of one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems (substitute sand for grass):

"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

Running on the Beach

The forecast for Friday morning called for intermittent rain all day, heavier rain in the afternoon.  But when I awoke and went down to the dune-top deck, it was not raining at all - there was fog out over the ocean, and too cloudy to see the sunrise, but no rain.  But what a joy it was to stand in this familiar place, surrounded by sand and dune vegetation, breathing in the tang of ocean air, and practicing slow, mindful Tai Chi after all the driving we have done in the past two days.  As I was going through the movements, the sky seemed to break open, and blue sky materialized overhead in a rough little window of calm, the fog and clouds melting away just as my travel stress was, shuffled off in the brisk morning breeze off the ocean.

When I returned and finished breakfast, there was even more blue sky.  It was low tide, too, so we decided that the tides and the weather (always difficult to predict out here on the edge of the world) had conspired to create the perfect conditions for a run.  We went down to the beach and headed north toward Fort Macon, on wide flat sand, our feet crunching on the many seashells, and then as we went farther north it was smooth and wide and free of shells, a place absolutely made for running.  The fog began to lift a little, and we turned and headed back to the Sands Villas.  Martha said, "I'm going to pick it up a little," and sprinted on ahead; I struggled to keep up.  What a wonderful run!  Martha said it was the best run she has had in a very long time - the Atlantic Ocean literally at our elbows, the morning sun so warm that I took my shirt off and ran bare-chested all the way back.

In the afternoon, we attended to practical things, airing out this condo that has been closed up for a long time, cleaning windows and tables, putting things in order.  A leaky toilet flush valve was replaced, light bulbs were replaced.  Lizette is gracious enough to let us stay here, so we treat this place as we would our own home, making small improvements each year.

In the afternoon, we checked out the nearby Morehead City Parks and Recreation facilities and I signed up for a year-long pass, at the incredible price of $40.00.  Free weights, Barre and Yoga, Tai Chi, and pickleball courts - we look forward to making good use of this place on rainy days while we are here!  On the way home, we found that Blue Ocean, the seafood market we discovered two years ago, had moved into spacious new quarters, and we came away with fresh dry-pack scallops, remoulade sauce, and smoked salmon dip.  Martha prepared a delicious dinner of scallops, heirloom potatoes, and organic carrots.  There is nothing better than simple food like this at the beach!

So our first day here on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean was a good one - sunshine, running, good simple food.  And the endless churning of the ocean, always in the background, and the ever-changing sky spread out to the horizon, sunshine flashing through the clouds.  That's why we like to come here - to re-connect to this beautiful natural world and to each other.

Sabbatical

It has been a week since my last post and much has happened in our lives since then.  We learned earlier this month that Martha's Mom found a lump in her breast, and a biopsy confirmed that it was cancer.  We met with her oncologist on Tuesday of this week, and he said that it was Stage I breast cancer, which could be treated by performing a lumpectomy, the least invasive of surgeries.  Her oncologist - she was cheered to learn that he was a Presbyterian, the son of a Presbyterian Pastor, and a member of her sister's church in Asheville - said that he expected the surgery to go well.  It has been scheduled for January 23, and at that time he will determine if follow-up chemotherapy or radiation will be required.

So after having been in limbo for several weeks, our planned Sabbatical to Atlantic Beach, the third year in a row, was again a possibility.  We decided to leave on Wednesday morning, and to return for the surgery the week after next.  Martha's brother Bill will also be having surgery to remove a kidney stone that same week; we have good expectations that both surgeries will go well, and so we began organizing for this very welcome escape from the single-digit temperatures of Highlands to this place we have come to love so much in Atlantic Beach, which I have written about for the past two years in this blog.  It is a time to get away, to gain some perspective, to think about what we intend to achieve in the coming year.  I wrote the word on our blackboard in the kitchen:  Sabbatical, a time of rest and reflection and renewal.

I drove up to Town Tuesday night to pick up Asia House take-out the night before our departure, and the sky was alive with streaks of auspicious brilliant sunset hues, gleaming in the trees along the road and on the horizon.  I stopped at the overlook on the Walhalla Road and took a photo which did not do it justice.

Wednesday morning we were on the road early, struggling through thick fog and drizzle all the way to Asheville, and then traffic delays all along the way.  As we approached Raleigh, the traffic was bumper-to-bumper, and we did not arrive at Lizette's condo until nearly 5:00 p.m.  It is because of the gracious generosity of Martha's aunt Lizette that we can stay here in an oceanfront building that is mostly unoccupied during the winter.

We had a nice visit with Lizette.  She is a remarkable woman, her photo in a beautiful floor-length wedding gown on the wall of her living room, a winning photograph among 2000 in a competition at the time, and one can still see that beauty in the lines of her face.  But by the time we were on the road again, it was later than we had anticipated and it had become dark, the drive from Raleigh to Williamston a difficult one; cars rocketed past us at 80 miles an hour, and we thought we would never arrive.  But at last we reached the exit in Williamston where we have stayed many times on our way to the Outer Banks.  There in the darkness, like a ship in the night, was the Hampton Inn where we stayed for many years.  But just down the road was the Big Mill Bed & Breakfast, which Martha had discovered three or four years ago, an absolutely wonderful little place, a quirky and comforting sanctuary after the long drive. 

"Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved
Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm
Come in, she said I'll give ya shelter from the storm." - Bob Dylan

The B & B is operated by Chloe, who has taken a farm which has been in her family since 1922 and turned it into a very special place, filled with Mexican tiles and Georgia O'Keefe paintings from her travels in the Southwest, and recently featured in Our State magazine.

This was our third visit to Big Mill,and Martha had found a room in the Packhouse Suite, a place where tobacco had been dried and sorted in the past; we did not know exactly where it was.  We pulled into the driveway, exhausted and dazed from the long drive, looking for our little sanctuary.  In the past, we have stayed in the "Corn Crib" in the big white barn, but this was a new berth for us.  At last we found the entrance, around the far side of the barn, where much to our surprise there was two inches of snow remaining on the ground from the coastal storm that had struck the East Coast the previous week.

Our friends Skip and MaryAnn had been in New Bern the previous week and left a day early because of this coastal storm, from which Highlands was ironically spared.  We entered the little arched doorway and found a warm sanctuary within that was welcome after so many hours on the road!

On the kitchen table thoughtful Chloe had left a note.  And then, an hour later, she called on Martha's cell phone to confirm that we had arrived.  I do not think the desk clerk at the Hampton Inn down the road would have done that!  Breakfast had been prepared for the following morning, and there was fresh-ground coffee ready in the pantry:

We slept as soundly as we have for many days.  And the Breakfast Bake was delicious!  I wandered around the property this morning taking photos.

A women was packing up her car behind the barn.  "Where are you from?"  I asked.  "Virginia Beach.  I'm going to check on my house.  We had 10 inches of snow!"  I told her where we were from.  'We love this place," I said.  "Yes," she said.  "I'm a frequent flyer."

The road to New Bern passed through that poor flat country we know so well in this part of the state, with the most amazing little houses and farms along the way, tractors and old cars parked under the cover of falling-down sheds, family cemeteries in the front yard, farm machinery parked patiently alongside big barns ready for Spring.  It was so strange to see ice frozen in the swamp along the way.

 

It was lunchtime when we arrived in New Bern and one of our favorite places, Morgan's Tavern, a big restaurant finding a new home in a building constructed in 1911 that was known as the "New Bern Garage Company,."  Shrimp tacos and lobster bisque - a taste of the ocean just an hour away.

After lunch I wandered through the famous Mitchell's Hardware store.  You can find anything in Mitchell's, from 10-penny nails to electrical tape to traps for kitchen sinks.

 

And then, at the end of the day, we arrived at this place on the Atlantic Ocean.  The familiar walkway down to the beach: 

We watched a gorgeous sunset partially obscured by clouds, our first of many that we hope to witness during our stay here, our Sabbatical.  A time for reading, and writing, and watching the sea and sky.

And now I sit at the kitchen table, listening to the rhythmic crash of the surf, writing this post in a blog that few will read, grateful for simply being here and breathing the salt air.