I've learned a lot since I moved here to the island, my husband's hometown, more than eight years ago.
· I've learned you can fry an egg on the hood of a white car in 105 degree heat just as easily as you can on the hood of a black one.
· I've learned you have to break for families of deer, slow wandering egrets, and shy turtles when pulling in and out of your driveway.
· I’ve learned fiddler crabs can and will slip through the tiniest crack in your garage door, then sit, stink, and stay awhile before you can find them.
· I've learned never to trust the Doppler Radar when going out on the boat. Even if it says there’s a scant 10% chain of precipitation, take a rain slicker, a few flairs, a grounding device, and be prepared to have your clothes hang off your frame fifteen pounds heavier than when you hopped on, and you’ll also feel fifteen degrees chillier.
· I’ve learned that even though most people consider John Freda Anti-Frizz Serum to be God’s gift to both man and woman, He and John obviously didn't think we would care a thing about it down here in little ole Southeast Georgia.
· I’ve learned that having a bathing suit season that lasts nine months out the year is not always a good thing.
· I’ve learned that loving a Gator may be a sin, but being a Bulldog is a way of life.
· I’ve learned that Brunswick stew is in itself a major food group, and though it may take you ten minutes to get a table at a restaurant, it's only because you know the ten people you've stopped and hugged hello along the way.
This may seem like a lot, but it's nothing compared to what my children have learned growing up here.
· They’ve learned that you can find live starfish in the tidal pools on East Beach after low tide, sand dollars if you dive deep enough past the break of the waves, and bio-luminescents in the brackish rivers after a good, heavy rain.
· They've learned that tubing the Altamaha is a lot of fun once you realize you're not really gator bait. And no, even though you share their space and even peacefully coexist, it's still not a good idea to dangle your feet over the dock while one of them is staring at you.
· They've learned that riding a bike means having the freedom to explore even though they might have gone through five boxes of Sponge Bob Band Aids to get there and that it's all worth it in the end because of the miles and miles of bike paths that allow them access to nature at its most pristine, kind of like a modern day Christopher Columbus.
· They’ve learned that there is no sense in hurrying to get somewhere. It’s what you see and do along the way that makes up who you are.
How lucky they are, to grow up here.
Unlike my girls, I didn't grow up on a beach. I dipped my toe in this existence, the salty, warm seductiveness of it all, from time to time and it would feel like coming home. It wasn’t until I moved here that I could see it for what it is. It’s a pliable, changing, cyclical place that moves as naturally and as reliably as the tides; not a place born of concrete and rigidity where a way of life is set in stone only to be abandoned and forgotten when something new or better comes along.
It’s a place that calls for our footprints to make a mark on its surface before disappearing as if we were never there, but we don’t care. We know we will get to come back and re-create our experiences again and again and again as if it was for the very first time.
It’s a place that encircles us with a warm caressing breeze. Not like a blanket that protects us from harm, but quite the opposite. No, it’s more like a whisper of warmth against your skin which stirs something in you, pushes you out of your shell, teasing you to be free of the everyday worries that confine you.
It’s a place where our beaches lay out like a giant welcome mat to seek out all that is wild and wonderful about our world while its rivers and marshes spin out around us and bind us all together at its core.In the end, I’ve learned how lucky we all are to live here, in this place.
And, most importantly, to have the privilege to call it home.
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