Quote of the day

"The simplification of anything is always sensational."
  --Gilbert Keith Chesterton

6:24:46 PM     

Pawleys Island

I've been thinking of the ocean all week.  Pawleys Island, South Carolina.  It's where I spent all of my summers as a teenager, and if I close my eyes (like this) and imagine walking across the sand - carefully side-stepping the washed-up jellyfish and jagged edges of seashells and crabs, shading my eyes with one hand to block the echo of sunlight bouncing across the vast stillblue water - I can almost, almost hear the sound of a pelican diving, and feel the grit of the sand tangled in my hair.   There are sounds and smells that remind me of days when my biggest concern was having no tan line and wondering who's that cute boy at the pool table (he must surely be a newcomer - I didn't see him here last year..)  I love driving to the beach.  The smell of the salt in the air from miles away, when you know, you just know, you're almost there.  I visited Pawleys Island three years ago, having been away for over 20 years.  It was much as I remembered, though commercialism has crept in, and the cottages are now considered "arrogantly shabby".  Crabbing, haunted houses, early mornings swimming in the creek, sunburns, jukeboxes, poolhalls, and nights when only the waves, the wind and the birds uttered a sound.  I'm going back.  Someday soon. 

6:09:17 PM     

Feline Zen

5:17:12 PM