Peace, quiet, and nothing to do

I was getting up close and personal with some Balkan Bears' Breeches (AKA Acanthus Mollis, and where have they been all my life?) when I heard a youthful voice nearby whining: "Isn't there anything to do here?"

The voice emerged from a large group of kiddos wearing matching T-shirts, and I suppose I can't blame them for being bored. I mean, we were surrounded by trees and flowers and birds and bugs and benches and bridges and ponds and lily pads and trails and canopy walks and frogs and rabbits and sculptures and all sorts of other lovelies, but if a kid on a group outing with a bunch of other kids in matching T-shirts doesn't find those things interesting, then no, I guess there isn't anything to do at the Holden Arboretum.

To be fair, I probably would have been bored at his age too. But at my age, walking around an arboretum for a couple of hours before the rain started was just my speed, especially after two weeks with the grandkids.

Last night the grandkids were in their front yard catching fireflies when their parents arrived home after their long trip back from Italy. My daughter had promised to bring me a big hug but what I really wanted was a sensory deprivation chamber. I mean, the kids were great, but after two weeks I've had more than my quota of noise and roughhousing and occasional unreason. All I wanted was a little peace and quiet.

At Holden Arboretum this morning I sat on a bench listening to the buzz of cicadas, the calls of birds, and the occasional plop of a frog jumping into the pond. A catbird and a common yellowthroat kept me company. Peace. Stillness. Not quite quiet, but close enough. 

I didn't even think too much about taking photos. Since I broke the telephoto lens on my Nikon last week, I've been making do with my smartphone camera. It's okay for closeups but I couldn't zoom in on the blue-grey gnatcatchers that buzzed in a crabapple tree or the butterflies and dragonflies flittering among the plantings. I think I've decided to order a reconditioned lens, but before I make any big decisions, I need to give my brain a rest.

Holden Arboretum was restful enough until the rain started falling. It's a big place and I don't move quickly in the best of circumstances, so I spent much of the afternoon sloshing around in wet shoes. I'm the one asking for peace and quiet but everywhere I went, I squeaked. But I'm dry now and enjoying the photos and looking forward spending a quiet night without being responsible for the health and safety of any other human being. Grandma Camp was fun, but today I'm savoring the fact that no strange kid's whiny little voice is even remotely my problem.

Balkan Bears' Breeches

Pondside view

I love this Dawn Redwood

In the way-back on the way back

One of the grandkids asked me this weekend how old I am and another immediately objected that it's rude to ask old people how old they are, which didn't help, but finally I told the questioner the year I was born so he could do the math, something I have to do every time I'm asked about my age or my kids' ages or how many years I've been married because who keeps those numbers constantly at top of mind? I could see the wheels spinning in the grandkid's head but even a math whiz gets something wrong once in a while, which is why we all laughed at the first guess--43--which is just a few years older than my oldest kid and that kind of math doesn't work unless you're a Tribble, born pregnant. Then the grandkid got confused and said, "Wait, did you say 1861?"

Well I feel about 164 this morning after driving two hours to get to campus in time for my morning class. As much as I love a road trip, driving that far takes a little something out of me, which is why when I got to campus I decided to park in a two-hour spot and risk the $20 ticket, because who wants to drive around in circles looking for a parking space after being on the road all morning? Parking enforcement is notoriously inconsistent locally, so maybe I'll go outside at the end of a very long meeting-filled day and find a windshield covered in pollen but no sign of a ticket at all.

I'm tempted to go outside right now just to get warm before my next class. For reasons no one can explain, my little corner of the building feels like a meat locker today, while my classroom on the other end of the building remains in tropical rain-forest mode. If I step out into the bright sunshine in my dark sweater, I'll be toasty in an instant, plus I'd get a chance to check on the progress of the peonies just down the mall. 

As I walk toward the peonies I'll think of a line from my daughter's choir concert last night, where they sang a setting of some Wendell Berry poems, including this, from "Sabbaths":

There is a day
when the road neither
comes nor goes, and the way
is not a way but a place.

"The way is not a way but a place."

I'll have to keep thinking about that one for a while. The music was so beautiful, the setting so serene, the poetry so profound, that I felt transported beyond the present, moving far along a path that brought me back to myself refreshed, something Artificial Intelligence will never accomplish. I hope.

My journey home was much less poetic but my trusty red car safely delivered me into the place where I pursue my way--toward what, I don't know. Happy to be here nevertheless.

Let's leave the rancor off the menu, please

My goal was simple: take a leisurely drive a few hours north, stopping at a wetland along the way (no eagles, sadly) and then visiting a nearly empty mall (new bedsheets!) so as to arrive at Alladin's Eatery just in time to treat myself to lunch--the Taza Chicken Salad, which may well be my favorite salad on the planet (grilled chicken! pine nuts! apples! grapes! and a honey dijon dressing to die for!). But when I walked into the fast-casual restaurant, one obstacle stood between me and my salad: a waiter giving me that look. 

Probably every adult woman who has ever traveled solo (and maybe some men, too--how would I know?) is familiar with the look. You walk up to the counter and tell the attendant that you'd like a table for one, and the attendant gives you a look dripping with disdain and says, "Just one?"

Now the waiter who served me the look this morning appeared to still be learning the ropes, fumbling to fill a role that was still unfamiliar. Maybe she needed a more experienced waiter to remind her that while a solo diner might not be the most lucrative party in the place, one customer at a table is better than zero customers, especially when the restaurant is practically empty. 

It's been years since I worked in food service but even I know that you can't treat customers like lepers just because they happen to be eating alone. If I were my father, I would have taken the opportunity to teach the waiter a lesson involving a great deal of yelling and demanding to see the manager and withholding of tips. But my father never worked in food service.

"Just one," I calmly told the waiter. "Is that a problem?" I may have given her a quiet look of my own, but it was not nearly as loud as my father's yelling would have been. 

In the end she was very attentive, and the salad was really good. I may have eaten it extra slowly just to assert my right to take up space at a table, but I left a pretty good tip. Maybe the lesson would have been more memorable accompanied by yelling, but a tantrum would have left a bad taste in my mouth. It's rare that I get an opportunity to eat a Taza Chicken Salad at Aladdin's, and I would hate to have that lovely taste tainted by rancor.

Road trip back to winter

And here we are back home again in one piece, if a little tired and ragged around the edges. When did I last wash my hair? Where is the bag where I stashed all my dirty clothes? When was the last time I cooked a meal or cleaned a room? Doesn't matter. We're home.

Just three short days ago we were walking barefoot on the beach picking up shells, watching cargo ships come and go, climbing a lighthouse, eating excellent seafood, and now here we are home and it's winter. We drove through a little snow in the mountains but the more severe weather is still on the way. Early Tuesday we paid one last visit to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge for a little relaxation before spending five hours on I-95; we saw red-shouldered hawks and egrets and herons and many whistling ducks, but today when we got home, we found our birdfeeders damaged by high winds and badly in need of attention. 

I'm glad I have a whole week to make final preparations for spring semester teaching and admin tasks, but my suitcase is calling me and my house wants a good deep cleaning. What's left in the fridge? Enough leftover ham for bean soup? When can I take down the Christmas tree? Oh, here's the pile of books I opened on Christmas morning--which one shall I read first?

Brand-new year, same old chores, plus how am I going to get all the sand out of my car? I guess I'll just have to take one task at a time and keep at it until everything is done, but first I think I'll take just a moment to savor those last few days at the beach.

I love the white flashes on the whistling ducks' wings.

Traffic jam.

Ibises

Gator

Egrets

Kinglet

The little blue heron

Red-shouldered hawk

My husband was obsessed with the container ships

Fresnel lens at the top of the Tybee lighhouse

The view from the top

278 steps up, and 278 steps back down

I love the way the morning sun lights up the waves

 

Misty

Sitting by the shore watching mist make things disappear--big solid things like container ships and islands and long stretches of beach--I feel like the last survivor of a catastrophe or the first person awake at the dawn of creation. The waves roll in, the waves roll out, sand shimmers in the light and then disappears beneath a wall of fog. I hear the waves pounding but can't see them, the ocean suddenly invisible. I've come to watch the water but it hides behind the mist and if I wait a minute longer, I too will disappear. The mist makes everything incorporeal, even me. Perhaps that's why I'm here.

  

Egrets, shmegrets

Yesterday I sent my daughter a text without realizing that Autocorrect had transformed my egrets and ibises to regrets and irises. Regrets? I've had a few.

I regret not packing more turtlenecks because this morning's wind cut right through me. The temperature was in the 50s but gray skies, intermittent drizzle, and sharp wind kept us off the beach and in the car for the first part of the day. We drove through the Wildlife Drive loop at the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge, high on my list of favorite places on the planet. The herons, egrets, and waterfowl seem unbothered by the weather, and a massive flock of black-bellied whistling ducks put on a playful show both in and out of the water.

Then we were off to Fort Pulaski, where we visited the monument marking the site where John Wesley first touched American soil. In his journal he mentioned the difficulty of finding a place to shelter from the sharp wind, and we empathized with him on that point. Wesley didn't much care for his time in America, partly because of a disappointment over a woman who did not return his affections, so he went back to England in a sulk and eventually founded Methodism. Regrets? He had a few, but he managed to put them behind him and carry on.

I'm sure the designers of Fort Pulaski regretted their inability to anticipate advances in weaponry. The fort took ten years and a million dollars to build (back when a million dollars meant something), and in 1847 the experts declared the completed fort impregnable. In 1861, Union troops tested new rifled cannons on the fort; thirty hours after the bombardment began, the Confederate troops surrendered. The fort's walls still show ample evidence of that battle. 

By the time we'd finished touring the fort, the rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and the wind had lost its edge. From the balcony of our condo I watched black skimmers strolling on the beach as waves rolled in behind them. Tomorrow we expect warmth and sunshine, but even if we don't get perfect beach weather, I don't regret coming to Tybee Island in the middle of winter. If we look hard enough, we can find shelter from the wind and so many beautiful things to see. 

(But no irises. Wrong time of year for irises.)

Little blue heron

Egrets having a bad hair day

Great blue heron

Coots (cute)

Anhinga

Hundreds of black-bellied whistling ducks in the distance

They're very photogenic up close

Little blue heron

The Wesley monument

At Fort Pulaski

Evidence of bombardment

Kestrel, I think

Nest box with bald eagle

Skimmers and waves, the view from our balcony