September 11, 2023
Watching on TV the bell rung for the dead at the Pentagon and then at Shanksville. Surprisingly engaged with each syllable of each name.
Painted two paintings in one day–aided by the fact that the layouts didn’t require drying time. Both of the Folly River. Linda says “The Ocean is your Muse.”
September 10, 2023
Left the beach in intermittent and then, at last, torrential rain. Not a drop fell on us at Folly. Last night was odd. I didn’t know how I felt about being home. I didn’t know how I felt about this week at the shore. Slept on it, and now it seems not to matter. I was glad to be back in my own space. The last few days at the beach my system boiled with histamines. I seemed to myself to be scratching endlessly. Did others notice? Being car-less prevented me from addressing this until we were on the road again, and I found Claritin at a roadside market.
Tony mowed the lawn in the last moments before the downpour. I try to avoid talking with him–only because he’s SO talkative I run out of responses– but I owed him too much money to hide this time.
I sit at my desk having no idea what I should do. Dreamed of painting vast, beautiful canvases that I could talk about with critics later, so maybe I’ll paint. No vast canvases, though, so long as I’m painting in the attic.
Could I live at the beach? It’s probably better as a vacation site. I was born beside the woods and feel at home there. The sea will always be a bit of an adventure.
When I went to get carts for the move out of the condo, I discovered that tiny sparrows had been roosting in them, safe through the night.
A bear I think was Ruth Bader Ginsbear was killed by a car on Beaverdam. Losing a friend.
September 8, 2023
Achy with exhaustion. Roamed the village before the others were up, settling in here and there to write, not all that successfully. Bloody Marys at my favorite red neck dives. Finding places out of the coruscating sun. In the afternoon we visited a park on James Island. Have I enjoyed being by the sea? Yes and double yes, but there seems something forced about it, as though my enjoyment were allowable only by quick and furtive glances to the side.
Watching boys on the beach through my monocular.
The morning of leaving Folly lies but a few hours off.
Gulls and pelicans glide close over the balcony, as though barely able to clear the building.
September 7, 2023
Our weather has been perfect, if a little tropical. Another pure clear morning with a ball of incipient fire hovering in the east. In half an hour the balcony will be uninhabitable.
Made my little inroads into the village, spying out odd corners and, in many cases, deliciously picturesque beach houses, each one to be coveted for a different reason. Sat on the dead street with iced coffee. Even the grackles were exhausted. There’s no emptiness like the emptiness of a resort after Labor Day. Drinks and salad on the pier, all that. Last night Captain Will took us on a boat tour–”Flipper Finders”-- of the Folly River and various formerly pirate-haunted inlets. I wanted to see dolphins, and dolphins we saw, as well as wood storks, oystercatchers, egrets, terns, pelicans, one great hunched and gloomy great blue heron. I can’t account for the melancholy I felt the whole time. We disembarked on a sandbank surrounding the lighthouse, where I found a sand dollar I was going to give to a little boy on the boat with us, except he came back with a brimming handful of the same. It was sunset, and the marshes were voluptuously beautiful, the sky pink and orange and purple around the reddest sun that ever was. Birds flew over, finding their rest for the night. In my dreams, marshes and swamps represent blessedness and peace. I don’t know why, as I didn’t grow up around any such landscape. I thought of that watching the real marshes darken around me. Am I drawn to a place like this to find peace? Should I start checking with realtors? Captain Will is a man who found a job that will cause him the least conceivable turbulence. A blessed man. The kid climbed around too much, but other than that, what could disturb him? He bids every day goodbye looking at dolphins and the light go technicolor over the holy wetlands.
Watching the US Open tennis matches. There are moments when tennis is exciting, and the players are fine physical specimens, but I never watch it on my own.
Vacation is Scrolling Your Phone Somewhere Else.
Hummingbirds at the balcony.
Evening: Went to the sea and played. Soothing, massaging. Shared it with surprisingly few. Turning red, but gradually, so it’s reasonably becoming. Drifted in cool water, thinking my thoughts, praying the same prayers that do not avail me on dry land. One pelican flies over us repeatedly. I know from the one feather missing from his right wing.
September 4, 2023
My room is haunted and gives me off dreams, not horrors but sickening prolongations, endless wrangling with stupid people, disturbing discoveries behind closed doors. Maybe it’s the air-conditioning.
Up early to write and to look at the ocean, both tasks accomplished.
Wandered the little town to my old haunt, Planet Follywood, where I had an excellent bloody Mary, a ghastly omelet, and watched the locals. Do they watch back?
What we do as a group is dictated by custom to a degree I had not appreciated. Variation, even suggested, causes anxiety.
Ate.
Sat on the balcony watching the stars emerge. The first one we saw we decided was Saturn, whose rings we could see had we better lenses.
September 3, 2023
Sharp, distinct smell of marijuana from the condo next door.
Folly Beach, my least favorite and most frequented resort. Fourth floor, near the western end of the building. The sun rose this morning in the exact spot where the copper moon rose last night. The difference is that the sun is blazing, unendurable , spearing off the gray waters, whereas the moon was a necromancer in mysterious red, making his own pale path across the waters. Bill and DJ thought the saw UFOs. We watched satellites pass, noting the abundance of them. I recalled standing on the Evans’ front lawn in Tallmadge, watching Sputnik hurry over in the late twilight, knowing what it was because it was the only one.
Surfing, wading, walking of dogs, sweeping of metal detectors across the sand.
Dolphins sighted at breakfast (ours).
Went to the beach and played in the surf among the weekend throngs. Threw escaping balls back to the hands of boys. Everybody was happy. Maybe invite our warring factions to the beach and give them water wings and let them play until it’s all worked out. Fathers and mothers teaching their young to swim, holding them so they fear nothing of the ocean. I walked to the end of the pier and back. Nobody was catching anything. The grackles gossiped. During our night vigil on the balcony we saw a tremendous meteor, blazing white at the head, its tail an improbable emerald green. It was so vivid and glorious I thought it was a firework, but it was not. Seconds later a duller one burst in the same part of the sky. We watched for a long time, hoping for a third.
Ironically, the task now, in South Carolina in September, is to keep from freezing during the night in the air-conditioned condo. I dreamed last night of trying to keep winged cats from overwhelming my house.
