BY THE SEA

It’s hard to take a bad photo at the beach because everywhere you look, there is beauty.  The soothing rhythm of the waves returns to memory even years later when you hold this kind of photographic moment in your hands.  That is precisely how I feel about this photo. One dazzling spring morning I was walking along the edge of the ocean in Duck, North Carolina.  Everyone is different at the beach. Some people enjoy the baking sun and never leave the comfort of their squat but brightly colored chairs.  Others enjoy bobbing in the salt water like overfed seals until their skin is comparable.  I prefer strolling along the beach at the exact juncture where sneaky waves tickle my feet and there is just enough moisture for my heels to sink almost imperceptibly into the damp sand. The day of this photo, I had ventured too far, again.  This happens almost every time I take off in a new direction by the shore.  I am extremely persuasive when I convince myself that the waves have delivered a perfect shell or tiny piece of sea glass…and it’s likely just ahead.  It compels me forward. I don’t want to miss anything.  As my pockets became heavier and soggier with treasures from the deep, I came upon this rusty old pier.  Its menacing magnificence extends from a field research facility, owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers.  I stood beneath it for a long time.  There was something calming about the repetitive pattern of the pylons so deeply embedded in the sand. If I take a deep breath I can still hear the sound of the crashing sea.

SUNSET AT BREAKNECK SPEED

I love a good sunrise but nightfall is my favorite time to snap photos.  I am by no means a professional (at least not in the field of photography). But I know what I like and the light on the earth as the sun starts slipping in the direction of the horizon is something worth capturing.  I was already a little melancholy when I spied the ice crystals shimmering in the roadside weeds.  The light was perfect.  My husband was oblivious to the changing hues as he was busy testing the speed limit on the highway. Now you’ve learnedthree things about me.  I love dusk, I’m a novice photographer, and I’m more than a tad risk averse…. We were traveling east after a long weekend with my best friend who had the audacity to move 650 miles away from me some years earlier. We’d been driving for a ridiculously long time and we were both a little cranky. Salt and other chemicals with lengthy names (and effects detrimental to the environment) had long cleared the highway for traffic, so logically I had little reason to be concerned.  But neurotic, I nonetheless remained. Fretful and hungry. To distract myself from worry and the tapping Morse code of my stomach, I punched the automatic window release, poked my cell phone out of the window of our speeding car, and pointed it in the general direction of the orange sky.  Jim’s response was predictable in a comforting way. “Hey! Don’t drop your phone!”  I admit to donning an unbecoming grin.  Now who’s being overly anxious?  

POND MAGIC

There is a magical pond.  It sits discreetly and contentedly atop a grassy knoll alongside a winding road on the outskirts of a blink of a village called Nauvoo. It has long been the place my family goeswhen we leave reality for a weeklong exhale.  A respite without distractions like televisions, deadlines, or dependable internet connection.  Each night after dinner, family members begin the migration to the dock. Waving cattails ornament the rim of the water, like a gilded frame on a priceless canvas painted with oils.The frogs are already practicing their low notes as the cricket chorus of thousands commences gathering to achieve a steady thrum.  Some of us pull out fishing lines.  Others read until the sun sinks so low the words become completely indecipherable.  At least one paddles the canoe, oars mutely breaking the surface of the pond…occasionally stirring up the impossibly green pondweed. I take my camera (more recently my phone camera) so I can try to preserve the feeling of serenity we all hold. Honestly, if I could just figure out how to bottle the feeling of a Tioga County sunset, I’d be a millionaire. Twilight shadows stretch their long arms across the hills and the glassy face of the water becomes a magical mirror where evening clouds check their faces with a vanity well-deserved. Hours later when the stragglers arrive and the cricket chorus gathers on their risers with full voice, the magic will return for Act Two.  And we’ll be lying like a row of cigars on old quilts with the dock below. Our eyes and our fingers, tracing the path of satellites and shooting stars.  At least until tenacious mosquitoes drive us indoors.

TOO MANY LEGS

In my still darkened bedroom, I reached for my reading glasses and phone to check for overnight messages. My eyes weren’t quite adjusted to early morning, but just a minute or so into the text retrieval process, the image in my peripheral vision was unmistakable. A nimble-legged arachnid was executing an athletic descent directly over my head. I was definitely in motion even before my optic nerve had fully messaged the visual cortex of my brain. I mean...that stealthy fellow was not what you would call “small” and he was  only inches from contact. Imagine a 58 year old gal in summer PJs performing a lightning-speed ninja roll off the far side of the bed, accompanied by a decidedly non-ninja shriek. Despite turning on every light in the vicinity and yelling for backup, the intruder who had been trying to maneuver his tricky little body toward the glow of my phone was not to be found. No sign of his eight creepy legs. No telltale home web. Not even an offending silken thread. So now I’ve no choice but to move out or torch our bedroom. 😳🕷