Sand in my shoes

I have a few favorite places in the universe. With only one or two exceptions, they're firmly linked in my mind to times with my kids. When the older ones were small, I would sometimes pick them up from school on a Friday afternoon and make a beeline north from Raleigh, NC, to Washington, DC. I had a lovely friend, Margaret, who lived in the southeast quadrant of the District, in a lovely reclaimed row house three or four blocks from the Metro. We'd arrive about 9 or 10 p.m., and I'd park the car somewhere on the block -- and not move it again until we had to leave on Sunday. We spent whole Saturdays in the Smithsonian, Sunday mornings cooking breakfast for Margaret, sitting and talking, pretending we need never leave, and Sunday evenings driving back to Raleigh after dark.

Margaret was a remarkable woman, the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries to China. They were among the last to leave during the Chinese civil war; Margaret's father was one of the few westerners trusted enough by both sides of the conflict that he was allowed to take food and other essentials back and forth, between and behind lines. I loved Margaret and her stories; Bri and Sean loved Margaret because she loved them back, unconditionally and without expectation. I did okay on the "unconditional" front, but I had lists of expectations -- and every child needs someone who loves them just for who they are, not who they have the potential to become.

Another favorite place was the San Francisco Bay Area. Last year, I drove back with Sean and spent an afternoon driving around my old neighborhood in San Jose. It's still there, just bigger. It still felt like it could be home; the little house where we lived when Bri was born was still there. (It wasn't yellow anymore, but it was there!)

And then there was Folly.

Folly Beach is one of the barrier islands on the South Carolina coast at Charleston. When Bri and Sean were in middle and high school and Mitch was very small, my dear friend Sara (Mitch' godmother) lived there. She's a pediatrician, and at the time, she was practicing in Charleston and staying in a little place on Folly. The tourists hadn't discovered it yet, for the most part. There were some summer places, but mostly, it was little houses and little businesses. It was quiet enough we could leave the kids at the house on a Saturday night and walk up to the local bar, three blocks or so away in the center of the island. They would watch rented movies, and we would have a couple of beers, shoot a little pool, dance to the local band, and walk home. Folly Beach was farther away than D.C., but we never left before dark on Sunday anyway. Usually, we arrived back home around 3 or 4 a.m. on Monday -- always with sand in our shoes, and often in our shorts.

Late last fall, I made a quick trip back to Folly. My sister had to make an unexpected trip to Charleston and needed someone to drive her, and after several days of doctors and surgery and stress and worry, I had to do a little something for my head before going back home. So I drove 20 miles out of my way to spend a few minutes on the beach at dusk, then have supper and drive back. It was worth the time and effort, every bit of it.

Folly has changed, of course. Its little commercial district is a little slicker, a little more "high-end." I couldn't identify the house where Sara lived; it may not even be there anymore. I know the dunes that were washed out during Hurricane Hugo (1989) have been replaced by another row of summer houses. Silly people... But the soul of the place is still there.

In a couple of months, I'm headed again for Folly. I'm attending a writers' retreat -- four days of blessed, beautiful work. Four days of focus on what's real and important and essential to who I am and what I do; four days of walking the shoreline at dusk, getting sand in my shoes; four days of breathing in salt air and letting it flow back out as perfectly chosen words.

Three or four years back, I started drafting a story set on Folly Beach. It's finished in my head (in fact, it's one of those stories that began with the end), but I haven't been able to track the middle yet. Maybe this spring, back at the source, I will.

Snow days

I know everyone in the higher elevations and the Frozen North figures we're wimps and wussies down here. Seriously - it's only in the 20s, with lows only down in the 'teens, and we're calling snow days. To which I can only say, "Yeah, yeah, whatever!"

It started snowing early Thursday morning, and it hasn't stopped since. Sure, most of what's fallen in the last 24 hours has qualified as "flurries," or even just "spitting snow" - not much to speak of, and we only have 3-4 inches accumulated - but I could do with a bit of sun at this point.

It does this once a winter, maybe twice, so there's not much call for spending big bucks on snow removal equipment. We have some, sure - more than we had in eastern NC, where there was even less need - but we don't worry so much about clearing the roads and keeping the schools open, because we know it's not going to go on all winter. Give the kids a break - they can make it up at the end of the school year and complain then.

Of course, we "big kids" still have to go to work, unless it's actually icy and they do close down business. That's happened maybe two or three days in the almost 10 years I've lived here. (And I believe they were all last year.) So out I went Thursday morning, dutifully skating my way up the hill in the little Saturn, and finding it was not so easy getting started again after stopping at the second stop sign. And even less so, stopping at the third... It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get to work, even though the interstate was clear, but I did get there.

As the day wore on, the snow continued coming down, but all reports were that the streets were improving. I didn't worry - met my friend, Paige, for margaritas and a mini-bitchfest after work (that's "margaritas" - plural - because I had one and she had one and that makes two!), then drove over to the public library branch at Mid City Mall for our monthly meeting of Women Who Write. Four of us actually made it, where we usually have 10 or 12. Ms. Emily wins the Nanook Award - she walked several miles rather than take her bicycle out in this weather. She's an adorably hardy soul!

We made short work of the meeting - even with critiquing a short story by one of the members, we were done by 8. I decided we didn't need groceries, stopped instead at Feeder's Supply for dog food and treats, and was home by 8:30.

I'd sent work home via e-mail Thursday afternoon, guessing that I might not be able to get out on Friday. Too much to do to be able to really relish an enforced day off... To get to our house, you have to go down a short but fairly steep hill, then back up a shorter but steeper one, and the driveway takes another sharp up-tick. I made it in, and I had no intention of even trying to make it out unless things were vastly improved. Our neighbors - none of whom has as steep a drive as we do - had wimped out and parked randomly around the culdesac, which is a little tight in the best weather. And since our drive is one car-width, we had to do the Vehicular Shuffle to get everyone in the order they needed to leave, which was a tight squeeze, what with about 40% of the street space taken up with two sedans, a station wagon, and a long-bed, king-cab pick-up truck...

I got a lot done yesterday, though. I'm usually more productive at home than at the office, to be honest - I pace myself better, and I don't have the distractions here. And when Ed got home, we went to Perfetto's for pizza.

They thought it was funny that we'd thought they might not be open. "We're from Wisconsin," Cindy laughed. "We're going to be here!" We knew that, but pointed out that most of their Friday night regulars aren't from Wisconsin, and we'd thought maybe business was slow and they'd decided to pack it in and cut back on overhead. But no, she said - Thursday night, they'd had two carryout orders and no dine-ins, but they were there. It's a family shop, so I expect the overhead for staying open in spite of the weather doesn't extend much past utilities.

Today, I've worked a little more - it was here, so I might as well make some headway on a couple of those projects - and done laundry. Youngest Child is moving in with a friend in a couple of weeks, and we're trying to get him organized so he can load his Vue and get moved with some degree of efficiency. Puts a damper on my plan to have the house back to pre-holiday order by mid-month, because I'm having to focus instead on his space and the rubble therein - but it will all happen. I just need to maintain my focus and hold my intention, even when I have to adapt the master plan. The thing is, my office space and the family room are now his staging area, which pretty much precludes any more organization in there until we're done with the moving thing...

I've been to the door in the past two days to let dogs out, let dogs in, put the cat out, bring the cat in, and only once to go anywhere. I've done three handbook revisions, a third revision on a "how it works" presentation, and written this one blog because I've been gone for weeks and I have to get back in the swing of it. The snow is lovely, and I've enjoyed sitting for a few minutes here and there by the back window, watching it fall while I drink my coffee. But more than ever, my muscles are twitching and my mind is racing, up the road and into the wind on my blue bicycle, which sits in the cold shed waiting for a warmer day.