slowly she turned

I’ve needed to go to the lake since mid June. It’s the place I am drawn to when my heart needs healing. Usually I need a few days by myself, but Sandy knows to give me my space when we are there. With Diego’s short life prognosis and Pablocito suddenly being the only mammal at home, I had to tear myself away to get there. Once I did, it was the right place to be. The weather was lovely, which meant that sitting beside or in the water in the shade was comfortable. As long as that breeze comes off the water, it’s good. The wind made breakers most of the time we were there.

The rainstorms, when they came through, were welcome. This part of North Carolina was in a terrible drought. Besides, I’ve always enjoyed watching storms from the back porch.

In the past year or so, somehow I became fascinated with bugs. This golden silk orb-weaver, species Trichonephila clavipes, set up its web next to our front door beneath the eaves. Maybe one of the most beautiful spiders I’ve ever seen. And look at those fuzzy legs! Happily, I had some fabric scraps with me that were just perfect for my stitch meditation inspired by this lady.

Later, another bug took me speeding back to my childhood – I rescued this click beetle from the galvanized metal tub of water we use to wash the sand off of our feet before we go into the house from the lake beach. He must have been too wet to click away.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time zeroing in on tiny bits of nature – the mark-making of raindrops, the sweeping clear of sand by Spanish moss, the tiny pebbles not quite pulverized into fine white sand yet, little bits of driftwood, seeds, shells, the circles everywhere.

We ate well too – unfortunately I came back three pounds heavier. We had a couple of guests and of course my sister for part of the time, and we ate out for almost every meal. As usual I wrecked my stomach by eating a lot of fried food, but Dale’s at Lake Waccamaw has the best fried calabash shrimp, yellow squash, and okra you’ve ever tasted, plus it has a great view of the lake. The first night there was a power outage so we went to The Chef and the Frog in Whiteville, which is much fancier but still affordable for that level of cuisine. We also went to El Juan Mariscos in Lake Waccamaw for Mexican food, which was not the ordinary Mexican-American that we are used to, and they actually had a burrito with mole sauce on the menu that was incredibly delicious. I’ve not found mole sauce in the Greensboro Mexican restaurants so far.

This sign at Dale’s made me think about all the reasons I love the lake as opposed to the beach. Of course, the biggest for us is the expense…we can’t afford to go to the beach very often and our family place at Lake Waccamaw is a place to go for free. But it has many more charms other than money. Being able to hang out next to the water in a shady spot under Spanish moss laden bald cypresses is definitely one. Generally, the traffic is very light and other than the OCD dude who is in love with his leaf blower and pressure washer a few houses down, the sounds of the waves breaking on the shore and the birdsong is right there with you instead of having to hoof it down to the beach or trying to find a parking space. The variety of birds and wildlife is huge. There aren’t any jellyfish or sharks. There are alligators across the road in the canal, and I know that they are in the lake, but I’ve never seen an alligator in the lake in my 63 years of going down there. They don’t like it in the part of the lake we play in – it is shallow and clear and there isn’t much food for them to eat there. In the summer, it is too hot for them. Same for most of the turtles and snakes – they prefer the canal and the undeveloped swamp behind it. I love to look for interesting pieces of driftwood on the sandy beach and I always bring home a bag of them.

All that being said, I would not want to live there. The area is rife with white nationalists and neo-Confederates, and the flooding from major hurricanes has been a serious problem. If it was a closer drive, I would visit a lot more often, though.

Here are two more stitch meditations I made while sitting on this shore: