(9/14/13)
It is a special kind of clean to soak off the grubby sweat and dirt from seven long hours in the car with a bubbling hot tub, then dive in a cold pool and later shower off the chlorine.
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Four months ago – when fall had not fallen and heat still shimmered brown between buildings, heavy and thick as bubbling caramel – pups and coons and bears headed from northern cities and climes into the southern south, to the northernmost Carolina. From even further and wider than we traveled, cousins came from the west and elsewhere to meet at two great, giant houses on stilts – separated by reeds and a neat path along a pond – near the Outer Banks beach of Corolla.
All told – at our most numerous – we numbered 20 humans and six dogs, most of us with the same ruddy blood flowing in veins, rising, and warming with the sun as pink as our skin did the first two days of the trip.
For a glorious week, we laughed from hot tubs on dusk-lit porches, rose to see sunrises of the same color, and ate bagels, doughnuts, and barbecue to fuel our bodies for swimming, digging, paddling, burning, rowing, and sleeping before doing it all again the next day.
It was a lovely time of family and talks, full of good medicine and closeness.
(9/17/13)
Supreme moment – fox digging for crabs, windswept shore, seafoam, sunrise.
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Despite getting sick almost immediately upon arrival and existing without a voice for over a week, those days were full of supreme moments.
Something about going there of a September, escaping stressful, pivotal times in my life for even a little while, like two years ago, resets and empowers me.
Be well, you – I love you all, and I’ll love you always.
Only eight more months till next year, guys.
– Sarah