FINDING SOMETHING NEW IN THE FAMILIAR

 

Fort Macon State Park, Bogue Banks, NC

Finding something new in the familiar is happening more and more these days.  We know why.  The familiar has become our all.  We're staying put and valuing our routines.  This often happens as the days shorten.  But even more with the virus still making many of our decisions. Today I found something new in my familiar.  

We alternate between home in the North Carolina Piedmont and home at the beach, where my parents lived before my mother's final illness.  So much it became home to them that they asked for their ashes to be commingled and scattered in the ocean.  Many of my beach memories include my parents.  I feel them as we cross the causeway onto the island.  So yes, it is a familiar place. 

There's a fort at the eastern end of the island, Fort Macon, built between 1826 and 1834 further inland from the site of an earlier fort subsumed by water when the high tide line advanced.  Everyone goes there.  The Fort for years protected Beaufort Inlet; Blackbeard's pirate ship, Queen Anne's Revenge, lies in just 20 feet of water off the shoreline.  We have lots of pirate re-enactments around here.  Fun for everyone.  

The other day I found a 3.3 mile trail winding through the sand dunes, maritime forest and wetlands in Fort Macon State Park.  I had never seen it before.  Just a narrow path of wood chips on sand.

Most of Bogue Banks is developed so there aren't too many spots where the dunes are high enough to obscure any sight of the ocean.  Here they are.   

We had a wonderful leisurely hike, except when pockets of tiny black salt marsh mosquitoes assaulted us in the wetlands.  We picked up our pace then, slapping our arms and legs and necks as we hurried on. Somehow we had forgotten that even in late October we might need bug spray.  Still it was worth it.  We saw a lot of Painted Lady butterflies, a few herons daintily stepping across the wet grass and a corn snake or two. 

When the trail we were on crossed the Fisherman's Path we could see the ocean and the rock jetty.  (See "Visit North Carolina for the Simple Pleasures," 2/23/19)

These days this was more than enough adventure for me, something new in my familiar. The pleasure seemed out-sized.  I still feel it.  A walk through a local neighborhood, a different part of the city, an adjacent town, a forest trail, or a bike ride somewhere new.  All safely outdoors and socially distanced.  Perfect.