Thursday, November 15, 2012

A walk in the woods


 A walk in the woods.  A blue Carolina day.  The smell  and crunch of fallen leaves. 
Tree shadow stripes.  Alone on the path. 





 And then a River.   Follow it.






  To the Falls

And we are alone

 Mesmerized


( Crabtree Falls - Blue Ridge Parkway near Little Switzerland)


We rejoice, not only for nature's grandeur 
but also for the small beauties that halt us in our tracks






 Sunrise painted the bare trees.  
An illusion to turn back the clock.


(view from our bedroom at Wildacres Retreat)



Friday, September 14, 2012

Transient Beauty

Sometimes, the surprise and beauty in nature is so extreme, so outrageous
 that it can shift our mood in an instant. 

The sight may lift our spirits. 
It might leave us feeling humbled and in awe. 
Perhaps it helps to re-connect us with some elemental and universal energy.

These small creatures, moths in the night, did all of this for me. 

Imperial female moth laying eggs



Rosy Maple Moth -- much smaller than the others


Known as Regal Moth or Royal Walnut Moth


Luna Moth


Perfect Art Nouveau !



Known as Giant Leopard Moth or Eyed Tiger Moth


I took these photos (with the rather crummy small digital camera that I've owned for years) up in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina while I was at a Writing Course at the Wildacres Retreat in July.  

These moths seemed to appear instantly, miraculously, like a magician's trick. I'd walked down the corridor  (sans moths)  to my room to write a page and get a glass of wine, and on the way back there they were ---a whole showcase of different and breathtakingly beautiful creatures clinging to interior and exterior walls and positioned close to lights.  (I assume the "magician" was ideal conditions: the right time of year, the perfect hour in the night, the lure of light, the correct humidity....) 

 It was live music that was drawing me outside -- North Carolina mountains and music, the perfect match.  I wonder indulgently if the vibrations of the music were also a draw for the moths, a romantic serenade.  For the moths were there to mate.  Not much else they do as adults -- mate and die.  Most of these moths have no mouths -- they cannot even eat!  Their eating is done earlier, when they are caterpillars.  In this adult form they last just a few days, just long enough to produce eggs.  Just long enough to knock us out with their beauty.

Does the transience of this extravagant beauty, its ephemeral nature, somehow ratchet up 
the way it catches in our throats and stays with us?



PS Someone who had grown up in these mountains said that, as a child, the exterior bark walls of his family's house would be almost covered with moths on a summer evening -- making a living wall paper of color and beauty.  He said sadly it was no longer true.  He had not seen so many moths, so many different species together in a long, long time.

Pure magic!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Vieques


I know I’m not in Durham when I am woken by the hurumpff of a horse just outside our window - a glassless window, just wooden louvers and a screen. (In fact there are rows of windows on two walls of our room letting in delightful breezes along with the sounds and smells of this Caribbean island).   As though the horse were the key to the day, a rooster follows in quick succession and then the beat of reggae passing in a car. Loud, insistent.  Before 7 am!  There is the smell of frangipani, and constantly in the background the comforting sound of ocean waves, responsible perhaps for my deep sleep, despite the buzz of mosquitoes and the roving, lumpy mattress cover.

We are at the Hacienda Tamarindo in Vieques, Puerto Rico.  We develop a morning ritual.  Roll out of bed, pull on our swimsuits,  reach for a towel and drive a few minutes to Sun Bay for a long walk on the  (at that time of day) deserted beach. 




And then a swim before heading back for our well-earned breakfast eaten on the second floor under the tamarind tree.  Juice, fruit, Spanish omelet, bacon, spicy hash browns, English muffins.  There are many other choices, but that becomes my usual order.   While we drink vast amounts of coffee and watch birds we cannot name on the feeder by the bougainvillea (a massed froth of white blossom), the kitchen staff make our picnic lunch and pack it with ice in a back-pack.  We add books, suntan lotion, grab our snorkel equipment and decide which beach to head to for the day.    

Again there are many choices. Most are named for colors – blue beach, red beach, green beach – the sign posts looking far more exotic in Spanish.  You need a car to get to them,  ideally, a four-wheel drive.   When you get there there is just the white sand, the warm aqua water, some palm trees or other vegetation, occasionally a couple of other people, but often not.   












 
There are rocks and reefs and bright tropical fish, magical shapes of coral.  I do not have an underwater camera. You will have to visualize this for yourself.  Picture three fan coral growing next to each other, one intense mauve, one pure olive and one almost salmon.  The sun is striking them so the colors are crayon bright and they are waving slightly in the current.  Between them is swimming a vivid yellow fish and a narrow one with a green tail, turquoise head and a dramatic white and black band around its middle.  And then you are distracted by two multi-colored parrot fish crunching on the coral, and, oh my goodness, there is a school of brilliant blue tang. You follow them, trying to count, over sixty for sure! And then, heading back to shore, your heart bursting with the beauty, a leopard ray passes below you, the elegant slow flap of its “wings”, the incredible length of its narrow tail.  You walk up the beach, pulling off your goggles.  It is deserted, no sign of anything man-made except what we carried down the forested path.  Graham is reading under the shade of tree.  No one else is on our secret beach. 






One of the reasons these beaches are so unspoiled and undeveloped is that, for many years, much of Vieques was used by the United States Navy for military exercises.  Protests led to the the Navy's departure almost 10 years ago and the land they used has now been designated as a National Wildlife Refuge.  The navy is responsible for color-coding the beaches. 

Vieques has been on my radar-screen (oops!) for many years.  When we lived in Kenya a friend from Boston waxed lyrical about the place, told us we'd love it.  She used to rent a large and wonderful house there with a group of friends.  Years later, when we moved to Durham, friends here raved about Vieques, made it a family holiday every year, told us we'd love it,  gushed about the house they rented. Turned out it was the same house that our friend in Boston used to stay in!! 

 I am a firm believer in the power of serendipity -- of taking it as a green flag (more color coding).  Knew we needed to go.  

We timed our trip to coincide with our friends.  They were in the house with their extended family, we had a charming room at the Hacienda Tamarindo.  They knew the best of the island -- the character of each beach, the perfect places to snorkle, the best restaurant.  The perfect guides, loving the same things we do.

If you like shopping, a  wide choice of good restaurants, sophisticated night life, TV in your room … what we did is not for you.  You need a car. Many roads were being re-surfaced, others had huge potholes.






You need to be aware of security issues – we were advised not to leave anything of value in the car and to leave it unlocked at all times to avoid the risk of windows being smashed.  We saw nothing that felt threatening.  There are wild horses everywhere, dogs and chickens, flamboyant trees coated with orange blooms.





Main drag of Esperanza early in the morning - usually buzzing with activity

One of the primary tourist attractions is a bioluminescent bay.  You take a boat tour at night and marvel at the dinoflagellates lighting things up – the outline of your submerged hand, the spray of water you kick from the boat, the bucket of water you stir into a flashing blue frenzy, the glowing blue outline of fish swimming away in the dark bay.
 
I know I am somewhere else when I order mofongo with shrimp at a casual outdoor restaurant and when we recline with our whiskey by the hotel pool and see the Milky Way flung out bright across a moonless sky.   But there is also a comforting familiarity.  We could almost be back in Kenya.  I find Scorpio, my constellation.  Clear as day on this dark night.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Coastal Routes


 I’ve been thinking about routes and roots and the play on words and meaning.  I am settling back into my life in Durham – have finally routed back here and I am re-rooting myself. South Africa and England seem very far away both in time and distance.

On my return in June, I barely touched ground before Graham and I headed south to Charleston where we were hosted by a wonderfully generous and community-minded couple who introduced us to the charms and variety of this beautiful city.  




We rode bikes through gracious and grand historic neighborhoods,  learned juicy tidbits about Charleston’s past,  met some impressive folk from North Charleston (a very different side of the city), saw an incredible art exhibition created  entirely from salt, ate fried green tomatoes and heavenly crab cakes sitting on a second-story verandah ….  





 This is salt!!  Painstakingly constructed on the floor of  the Halsey  museum by the Japanese artist, Motoi Yamamoto.   It looks like lace, like foam in the ocean after the break of a wave.  The artist creates this as part of his healing process to mourn the death of his sister. I found it an oddly moving  and mesmerizing exhibition with its strange, intricate beauty and the knowledge that one person sat on the floor and formed each one of these shapes by pouring salt out of a small squeeze bottle.














 It was at this table for two on Poogan's Porch, that we enjoyed a wonderful lunch and, sitting here with our glasses of wine after the meal, phoned my sister Deborah in London.  We reached her at the opening night of her exhibition at the John Martin gallery. 


Deb taking my call

 It was less than two weeks since I had been with her at  Glyndebourne, awed by her massive sculptures in that perfect setting. (See my previous blog post).  

The routes we take, the roots we keep!


minutes after the call



Graham and I wandered back up the coast,  first spending a couple of nights enjoying the low-country charm of McClellanville and the friendly welcome and generosity of the folk who had invited us to stay with them.  We had first met them last October at the Fall Gathering at Wildacres.  They enjoyed listening to me read some of my work, and encouraged us to visit so that I could read to a group of their friends and acquaintances in McClellanville.  (I loved doing this -- great fun and a most gratifying response  -- perhaps a new activity??)

I read a selection of pieces  from a memoir collection I am putting together  -- one about  partaking in an anti-apartheid protest when I was a university student in South Africa, an excerpt from a safari in Kenya and a couple of pieces about collecting my beads in remote areas, and their healing energy.  

Despite the worst mosquito population we have ever encountered, we had a wonderful visit – relaxed and leisurely.  No locked doors, lots of humor, fantastic fresh seafood.  We marveled at  the enormous size of huge old Live Oak trees draped in Spanish moss,  saw dozens of characterful  shrimp boats, had a private guided tour of the  Village museum which had a fascinating collection relating to the history of the area --- Seewee Indians,  French Huguenots, rice plantations, timber, seafood. 



We braved the mosquitoes and visited a peaceful old plantation and a historic brick church built in 1768.  The church,  St. James Santee Parish Church, reached by a  long dirt road through a forest (used to be the King's Highway), now feels like it is in the the middle of nowhere. The church was lovely --airy and bright with high white-washed walls,  impressive high-sided wooden pews, old brick floors --  very special, a sense of history held and nurtured. 

Graham and I beach-hopped back up the North Carolina coast.  Two nights on Sunset Beach with its wonderfully wide, wide beach and sand dunes hiding the houses, so you feel you are more remote than you are.  (I’m always up for remote).  We stayed at the very pleasant  Sunset Inn and enjoyed sipping wine on our spacious screened veranda overlooking the marsh.





We ended with a couple of nights at Shell Island Hotel on Wrightsville Beach.   I like this location because it is at the far north of the beach, no buildings beyond and the lovely curve of an inlet with great bird life.  Water was warm, sand was white, waves were perfect.




Pelicans flew in long lines skimming just above the curl of waves, and other seabirds plunged white and fast into the water to catch small fish.  It was walking along the edge of the inlet looking for shells as the tide rippled in clear, that my eye was caught by the sting ray moving through the shallows -- the elegant swaying motion, the flutter of her wings.  She was almost at the water’s edge,  inches from my feet.   And then we saw the male, moving in fast.  They followed each other, his smaller body, almost a shadow behind hers as they swam and angled through the clear water.  A beautiful dance. We kept pace. He slid in behind, she convulsed, sand swirled around them.   They  circled round,  teamed up again.  Another mating dance.






I am rooting for babies!!
The future held and nurtured.