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.