Beaufort

It’s hard to believe that we have been here for almost two weeks.  I posted on January 6 that we were Settling In, but now it seems as if we have been here a lot longer.  I have been unable to sleep past 7:00 a.m., when light begins to filter into the bedroom through the vertical blinds, and sunrise (7:15) unfailingly finds me out on the dune-top deck for my morning Tai Chi.  I was surprised to find the walkway and deck coated with ice Tuesday morning, even though the temperature was only 39 degrees. 

And there has been a brisk northerly wind on one or two mornings recently when, let us say, my Tai Chi was completed expeditiously. 

I have run six times so far this year, completing a total of 12 miles, many more than I would have logged in Highlands so far this year, which Friday night saw its first snow of the year – not very much accumulation, but a lot of accidents reported on Facebook, mostly the sort caused by out-of-town SUV-drivers who believe that their huge, All-Wheel-Drive vehicles are invulnerable until they reach those slick places where the locals know to slow down.  We have also been to the fitness center, where Martha took a yoga class and I worked out on the many varieties of free weights and machines they have there.  And on Saturday, we attended “Bend and Brew” yoga at the Crystal Coast Brewing just down the road, a yoga class that concludes with a free beer and some time to socialize afterward.  We have also attended church twice at the friendly and welcoming First United Methodist Church here, which has a wonderful Pastor, Powell Osteen, whose sermons we have enjoyed for eight years now.

The stack of books and New Yorker magazines which I had been accumulating for some time now has also significantly shrunk in size.  Martha is on her fifth or sixth book already, and I am making headway, too, finishing all of the New Yorkers last night and putting some of my books aside for special attention, as a wine aficionado might put aside a special bottle, a reserve vintage, to savor on a special occasion.  The televisions (there are four of them, one in each room) have remained off.  And I have been working on some poetry, too.  Thursday morning, a thin red sunrise appeared fleetingly in a chink in the clouds on the horizon and then vanished for the rest of the day.

 
What light there is is ambient light,
and I have seen this kind of light
leak through the occluded dawn,
thin and red, standing out here alone
on the edge of a dark continent
that still sleeps, that waits to greet
whatever may happen to appear
on the horizon at the chosen time. 

We have not gone on many day trips yet, but Thursday we decided to drive across the bridge to Beaufort, one of our favorite destinations.  The pretty waterfront town has been named by USA Today and Southern Living, among others, one of the prettiest small towns in the country.

We stopped first at Fishtowne Brew House on Turner Street, where we enjoyed a very good beer, sitting out front on this cloudy but unseasonably warm day watching locals and visitors stroll past.  Then we split up, Martha heading to the waterfront to visit some shops on Front Street while I went the other direction, to the Old Burying Ground on Ann Street, which I never fail to visit when I am here.

 
The Old Burying Ground contains graves dating to the Civil War and even to the Revolutionary War, and the Historical Society gives tours and distributes an interesting brochure about those who are buried there. 

Vienna Dill (1863-1865), a two-year-old, was buried in a glass-topped coffin because her father could not bear to see her sealed away.  When vandals desecrated her grave one night, she is said to have disintegrated.

The British Officer (1700s), a sailor in His Majesty’s Navy, insisted on being buried standing up at attention, which is how they buried him.

Not far from the British Soldier is a grave containing sailors who froze to death when the Crissie Wright was wrecked in January of 1886.  It is marked by only three or four bricks. 

 
“Cold as the night the Crissie Wright went ashore,” is a phrase still used around this part of the coast.  It is said that all hands were lost except for the ship’s cook.

And why did he alone deserve to live?
Trembling in his bright icy salvation
While his shipmates, one by one, were
Lowered into a common grave in the
Old Burying Ground under the live oaks,
Slipping and sliding on frozen ground.

And, my favorite grave of all (and that of many others), The Girl in a Barrel of Rum (1700s), who (the story goes) begged her father to take her to London.  He promised to return her to her mother’s arms, but she died on the voyage home, and her father brought her body back in a barrel of rum.  Her story strikes a chord with many, who to this day decorate her grave with little dolls, flowers, and stuffed animals.

And according to one account, the story doesn’t end there. “There are those who say that the figure of a young girl can be seen running and playing between the graves in the Old Burying Ground at night.  They say that the tributes left on the young girl’s grave are often moved about the graveyard at night, often found sitting balanced on top of other gravestones or in places they couldn’t have moved to by just the wind.”

The Old Burying Ground is a spooky place at night, as we discovered a couple of years ago when the Historical Society was offering night-time tours.  So it was a relief to pass through the wrought-iron gates and wander down to the waterfront, where I eventually met up with Martha.

These yachts were so beautiful!  I can almost imagine living a simple life on one, going from place to place like a wandering Ulysses and tying up in pretty little ports like Beaufort.  Except that we have seen boats like these tossed about and smashed in the aftermath of hurricanes, and winds and seas so high that small craft warnings are common on the weather forecasts out here.  

 And then there is sea-sickness . . .