The Ocean is Calling

The Ocean is Calling, I wrote on the little blackboard in our kitchen – the final entry for 2022 as we prepare to embark on a journey to Atlantic Beach once again for our winter “Sabbatical.”  This will be our eighth year in an oceanfront condo, the first six of them staying in Martha’s Aunt Lizette’s place where she graciously allowed us to stay during that time when being out of doors in Highlands becomes something of a challenge.  The temperature at our house was 3 degrees on Christmas weekend, and 5 below zero in Highlands, resulting in many broken water pipes.  It is not a good idea to run in such extreme temperatures for any runner, and the older this runner gets the more he feels the cold.  I have photographic evidence of runs in the snow and the cold, when ice crystals formed on my beard, but those days belong to the past. 

Atlantic Beach is between 15 and 20 degrees warmer during these months, which means that on most days we can get outside and run or hike, or simply walk on the beach, and stay fit.  There is also a very good fitness center here with a swimming pool, weights, and yoga classes.  More importantly, it is a true Sabbatical for us, a time to grow closer to each other and closer to those vast elemental forces all around:  the wide south-facing ocean (which allows us to see both sunrises and sunsets), the tides, and the weather.  It is also a time to read and reflect and write.  The television is never turned on, unless there might happen to be an Insurrection or an Impeachment, both of which we hope to avoid this year.  I have written a lot of poetry out here on the edge of a continent, where there seem to be fewer interruptions.  And of course, this often-dormant blog revives itself, too, an opportunity to share with my few followers the wonders of a winter beach:

On a winter beach, sparsely populated,
The surf is too cold for children’s toes,
The children of summer with their little plastic pails.

The west wind sings and stings with sand.
A surf fisherman is bundled against the wind,
Anchored to the sand like his rod augur.
An old man is sweeping his metal detector softly
Side to side, listening intently through earphones,
Fishing for that bright hidden ping of surprise,
Up above the knee-high scarps, searching.
A lost wedding ring, a locket, a piece of silver
In the storehouse of the deep sand.

This year, we decided to take our time getting to Atlantic Beach, extending a journey of less than 500 miles to more than 900.  We also decided to leave a day earlier than planned because of an approaching weather front and heavy rain.  So on this first day we drove only as far as Winston-Salem, where we arrived early enough to spend some time in Old Salem. 

I even had time to walk up to “God’s Acre,” the Moravian graveyard near Salem College, where in keeping with Moravian beliefs all of the grave markers are exactly the same, as indeed all of us are when we leave this world – the egalitarianism of the deceased.

We stayed at our favorite safe harbor, the Historic Brookstown Inn, a converted cotton mill which is within walking distance of Old Salem and features irregular floors and heating systems, huge wooden beams and columns, and ancient brick walls. The Inn also features a tabby cat named Sally, who hitched a ride in a moving van and traveled cross-country years ago and (her owners having been located by the chip in her ear and having no objection) decided to take up the post of Hotel Cat.  On our last visit here just after Thanksgiving, the elusive Sally was nowhere to be found, but this time she made an appearance and reluctantly posed for some photographs, pretending not to notice the photographer, although welcoming the attention of two teenage girls who stroked her and cooed at her.  Typical cat behavior.