“At first the tired body takes over completely. As on shipboard, one descends into a deck chair apathy. One is forced against one’s mind, against all tidy resolutions, back into the primeval rhythms of the seashore. Rollers on the beach, wind in the pines, the slow flapping of herons across sand dunes, drown out the hectic rhythms of city and suburb, timetables, and schedules. One falls under their spell, relaxes, stretches out prone. One becomes, in fact, like the element on which one lies, flattened by the sea; bare, open, empty as the beach, erased by today’s tide of all yesterday’s scribblings.”
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
What is it about these Outer Banks that’s so different from the Jersey Shore I know and love? I’m smitten here. My soul quiet. Unfettered.
I’ve been trying to articulate this observation in my journal for five days now and I continue to sit and stare at a blank page. It’s as if my will to perform has been erased. Deck chair apathy, indeed. I can’t even read a book. It’s too much effort.
Amazingly, thankfully my heart is light. The love of my life is peaceful and content. Our children are calm and happy. Together our spirits are joyful.
I stumbled across the quote above while I browsed through a coffee table book on the last day of our Outer Banks vacation. It says everything I’ve been unable to say. And more.
Truly, this is the life.
The quote is from her book Gift from the Sea. She was an environmentalist long before anyone thought of the environment. It’s a wonderful book.