Always Ourselves We Find in the Sea

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea.
e.e. cummings

I am a beach baby, having lived a stone's throw from Fire Island National Seashore on Long Island from the moment I was born until my family packed up and moved south in October 1971. I was 11 years old. No one warned me of how terribly I would miss the beach once we settled in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Our new home offered a beauty all its own - rolling hills gently reaching higher into the majesty of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the West, with the great Smoky Mountains rising just beyond. And a landscape dotted by herds of cattle and miles of farms; even a field of cotton at the end of our road.

I had taken for granted that my mother could just pile her babies into the family station wagon for a short 15 minute trek to the seashore (Google Maps says 8 miles - 13 minutes from our old home). As we welcomed our first Carolina summer,  I soon discovered that it would take at least 4 hours by car to reach the ocean. Needless to say, our summer mornings digging in the sand, chasing the waves before returning home for a quick lunch and a welcomed nap had sorely ended. Instead my parents would drive to the South Carolina coast, rent a hotel room or cottage and there we stayed for a few days or a week. It didn't happen very often, but it did satisfy that deep longing to allow the sand to tickle my toes and feel the heat of the salty sun on my back.

When you are born and raised near the sea you can never quite rid yourself of that ache to return again and again after life leads you away from it. Every summer I long for it - the briny air, the tumbling, crashing surf and the gull's cry. That's why almost every summer for the past seven years, Jim and I have loaded up our big Ford van (aka Big Bus) with all things necessary for a week (and then some) of beach living and head down to the most beautiful coastline in the world (in my humble opinion) - Hatteras Island National Seashore in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Over the years we have rented cottages in the Hatteras communities of Avon, Rodanthe, Salvo and Waves. Glimpsing the great Atlantic for the first time as we rumble along Highway 12 each June always sends a thrill through my veins like nothing else can and no matter how stifling hot it may be outside, we flip off the air conditioning and open the van windows. I allow the breeze to carelessly tousle my short, silver locks. From here on out, it's a "beach-do" for me. I am restless and eager to sink my toes into the slick, cool sand as the waves wash over my feet then recede into a dizzying, whirling rush of sea foam.

Hatteras Island beaches are pristine and wild despite the oodles of visitors that are drawn to its shores each summer. Hurricane Irene certainly left her mark. Rodanthe doesn't look quite the same. We spied some of the damage to a few of the cottages as we passed by on our way to Waves two weeks ago. In fact, Irene carved out a new inlet severing N.C.12 near the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, requiring a new, patch-work bridge to be built over it. It made me think about the temporariness of things, of life in this world and the incredible force of nature.

There were two days during our recent stay when we avoided the beach altogether after a few feeble attempts to stick it out. While walking Holly on the beach with Jim one morning, the wind pelted us with stinging sand, as the waves furiously pounded the shore, one atop the other in a marvelous show of audacious bravado. We turned back toward the house after only a few minutes. (Holly was drenched in sand - from her pointy, little Dachshund nose to the tip of her little tail - giving her the appearance of a snow dog. Poor thing!)

The sea was unruly that day and electrifying. I remember my dad liked to visit the beach right after a storm passed when the ocean was crazy wild rendering swimming too dangerous. I suppose I am very much like him. What is it about seeing nature unleash such sheer power? Are we fascinated by our inability to tame the beast? Do we delight in our puniness? I guess for different people it's different things. For me it's all of these things and probably more. Gazing out over rough seas exhilarates me, when all I can utter is, "Wow!"

I lose myself as I relinquish all to the tempest only to discover a truer version of myself standing there in front of my God. All masks blown clear away, no pretenses - just a foolish, little girl and her God in all His glory.

Rodanthe on Dwellable