They all worship the sea. But not me. I like to be near it but I’m afraid of it. It’s so powerful. ~ Emma Freeman Thompson White (Katie’s maternal great-great-grandmother)
As I watched my granddaughter contemplating this powerful sea my thoughts turned to these words my grandmother wrote to my mother when she was passing on her memories for the next generation. My grandmother’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all sea captains. (And many of her other ancestors were, too.) The “they” she was referring to were her ancestors.
My grandmother’s words resonated with me because I feel the same way she did about the sea. She always told me the sea was in my blood, but I never had the desire to sail the seas the way my ancestors did. Like my grandmother, I did want to be near it, but safe on land!
These pictures were taken with my cell phone Sunday morning before we left for our trip home. I haven’t seen such high waves in a very long time! My app said they were 4′-6′ high. I’m pretty sure the tiny birds were sandpipers and there were dozens of them darting quickly around between the crashing waves. They were only about 6 inches long. I zoomed the cell phone camera as much as I could but they came out fuzzy. Well, at least I have my memories!
If wrecked opon the Shoal of Thought How is it with the Sea? The only Vessel that is shunned Is safe — Simplicity — ~ Emily Dickinson (The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #1503)
10.10.26 ~ Bodie Island Lighthouse Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Outer Banks, North Carolina
great egret
The only full day of our visit to the Outer Banks was wet. I only took my camera out of its protective case once, in the afternoon when we visited the Bodie Island Lighthouse. There is a nature trail on a boardwalk extending out into the marsh from the lighthouse site. At the end there are stairs up to a viewing platform that had a roof overhead. So I took out the camera and got a great picture of the lighthouse and another one of a great egret that was hunting in the marsh below. The camera got wet anyway because a breeze blew the rain under the roof. I dried it off as best I could.
I was so glad I invested in a good raincoat earlier this year. (I had made good use of it before, as it rained all day when we buried Tim’s ashes.) Even though I couldn’t take pictures it was a joy to be able to watch my Katie be captivated by all the crabs she spotted in the water, skittering around on the mud between mounds of marsh grasses.
One goal I had when I was younger was to visit every national seashore. Life got in the way, but I was happy to add Cape Hatteras N.S. to the ones I have been to, Cumberland Island N.S., Assateague Island N.S., and of course, Cape Cod N.S.
In the morning we had visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial. I was awed to be standing on the grounds where those historic first four flights took place. They had markers where the plane landed, with the distance of the flight, how long it took, and who flew it. They took turns, Orville went first, so I’m guessing that is Wilbur watching in the photo below. They wanted this sandy spot so they could have soft landings. Each flight was a little farther and my Finn decided we would walk the distance to see all four markers. The fourth flight, with Wilbur, went 852 feet and lasted 59 seconds.
17 December 1903 ~ First flight of the Wright Brothers. They were the first men in history to fly a controlled, powered airplane. image credit: U.S. National Park Service
I’m relying on photos donated to Wikimedia Commons to remember the rest of the day. More walking, it was a half-mile walk from where the flights happened to the 60 foot tall monument that was built in 1932 on top of Kill Devil Hill. About 95 feet above sea level, the hill was a huge sand dune where the brothers conducted their glider experiments. What a view there was up there! And then half a mile back to the visitor center, which was full of interesting artifacts and historical information on the whole Wright family.
Wright Brothers National Memorial image credit: Yuming Huang (2017)
After all that walking we returned to our vacation rental for lunch and then headed down to see the lighthouse. After the lighthouse we drove farther south, enjoying the breathtaking scenery. I had no idea that Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge was next to the national seashore! Driving over the bridge in the picture below (I think) we could see these spectacular dunes. (Again, due to the rain I’m borrowing someone else’s pictures.) It was getting late so we pulled into a road to turn around, and that’s when I saw the sign for the wildlife refuge. I have often heard birders raving about this place. According to AI, it is “a world-renowned birding hotspot that has recorded over 370 bird species.” Well, I hope I can come back here and explore someday!!!
sand dunes by Ken Lund (2014) Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, Outer Banks, North Carolina
And so another wonderful day ended with supper, working on puzzles, and enjoying some good conversations, followed by another good night of sleep.
10.9.26 ~ Ashville Drive Beach Kill Devil Hills, Outer Banks, North Carolina
When we arrived at our vacation rental in Kill Devil Hills Friday evening we brought in our luggage and then walked straight down to the beach. Before we even got over the dune or saw any waves, grandson Finn spotted a little crab on the walkway, perfectly disguised in the sand.
Standing out on the beach was a sculpture someone had left. I’m guessing the 26 stands for 2026 but I can’t decipher the other bits. Katie couldn’t make sense of it, either.
the two dots on the right are my grandchildren
pretty clam shell
slightly bigger clam shell
walkway over the dune
I spent a lot of time watching three willets hanging out somewhat close to me. The lighting wasn’t great, it being evening and cloudy with the outer bands of Hurricane Isaias over us. The sea was relatively calm, but a day and a half later there would be some impressive waves here.
willet
The woods are never solitary — they are full of whispering, beckoning, friendly life. But the sea is a mighty soul, forever moaning of some great, unshareable sorrow, which shuts it up into itself for all eternity. We can never pierce its infinite mystery — we may only wander, awed and spellbound, on the outer fringe of it. The woods call to us with a hundred voices, but the sea has one only — a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne’s House of Dreams)
It felt so good being by the sea again. There’s something about that salt in the air and the sound of the waves that is so healing. I slept very well that night.
5.14.26 ~ Elm Grove Cemetery, Mystic, Connecticut photo by Larisa
It rained all day on May 14th. I didn’t take a single picture for the entire day. But I’m glad Larisa captured this last moment Finn had with his Grandpa, checking to see how heavy his ashes were. The two of them shared a birthday and were two peas in a pod. I will never forget how much fun it was to watch them playing together.
I chose to bury Tim’s ashes in Elm Grove Cemetery because it is located in the county where we lived for 47 years of our marriage, and because the plot was purchased by my 2nd-great-grandfather, who lies buried there with his own parents and great-grandparents and other relations. They all also lived in southeastern Connecticut, and there is still room there to bury ashes, so it seemed like a good choice. Tim & I took many walks in this beautiful cemetery, which sits on the banks of the Mystic River, just north of Mystic Seaport.
We may fear change or we may embrace it, but the planets turn, life goes on, the Great Cycles continue. These cycles move Nature and our lives through death and rebirth, through containment and release, through holding and letting go. The seed pod tightens and hardens around its precious cargo, then it breaks and releases the new life into the waiting earth. ~ Philip Carr-Gomm (Inspiration for Life, May 25, 2026)
image credit: Wolf Rock Nature Preserve website
Later in the day we all drove up to Wolf Rock in Mansfield, our northeastern Connecticut hometown, to scatter some of Tim’s ashes along with the remaining ashes he had kept of his brother, Toby. Still raining, it was a quarter-mile hike up very rocky and very muddy terrain through the woods to the glacial erratic where Tim and his brothers used to hang out as teens. Tim and Josh scattered some of Toby’s ashes here in December 2013, but now Dan, Matt and Jed had a chance to be here to scatter the rest of them.
The next day, on May 15th, we held an afternoon celebration of life at the Zbierski House at “our” little city beach. Besides the family, we were now joined by old friends and neighbors and lots of Tim’s buddies from the ham radio clubs he belonged to. It was wonderful. I had spent weeks working on a slide show of Tim’s life which was playing on a TV continuously and started many pleasant conversations and quite a few trips down memory lane…
photo by Jenn
Below is one of my favorite pictures, taken before the first heart attack and the battle with heart disease began. The fun, empty nest, middle-aged period of our lives. He was 51 and only just beginning to go gray…
Tim in our kitchen, 2004
Zbierski House at Eastern Point Beach ~ photo by Jenn
I feel more settled now that Tim’s ashes have been returned to the earth and that his family got to be together to say good-bye. The trip was grueling for me physically but somehow I made it and the emotional healing was worth the effort. I’m still incredibly sad and lonely for him but am learning how to carry the grief. How to take walks without him pointing things out to me…
I think my last hurdle will be resuming family history research. It’s going to be hard not having him in the next room, doing ham radio stuff, but always ready to drop everything when I came in to share new discoveries with him. I still have those last three boxes to go through… And several other projects waiting in line…
Dima called out from behind me as we walked along Elephant Rock Trail. “Look up! Directly above you!” A beautiful red-shouldered hawk was observing us from a fallen tree suspended above the trail. We noticed it had one talon curled up close to its belly. It was a pretty cold day in spite of abundant sunshine so it was probably trying to keep warm.
red-shouldered hawk
It had been over two years since Tim & I took this long, hilly, walk out to Elephant Rock by Morgan Creek. This time Dima, Larisa and Katie joined me. (Finn was at camp.) It looked a little different out there without leaves on all the trees.
looking down to Elephant Rock, Morgan Creek, and my family from the trail
father and daughter decide the climb up to the elephant’s head
see the trunk?
After conquering the rock they couldn’t resist the challenge of crossing the creek on a fallen tree trunk. They kept testing their balances while standing, but finally decided to sit and scooch over bit by bit.
They did it!!!
Larisa and I started heading back down the trail while Dima and Katie came back over the creek and then caught up with us. Watching them cross the creek the one time was more than enough excitement for me!
Hard, hard it is, this anxious autumn, To lift the heavy mind from its dark forebodings; To sit at the bright feast, and with ruddy cheer, Give thanks for the harvest of a troubled year.
From the apprehensive present, from a future packed With unknown dangers, monstrous, terrible and new— Let us turn for comfort to this simple fact: We have been in trouble before . . . and we came through.
On Saturday my son-in-law came to my rescue and figured out how to get pictures from my camera onto my laptop, and then patiently taught me how to do it myself. My daughter spent most of her weekend organizing and updating my important papers, accounts and digital information, for which I am grateful because I am so brain-numb and overwhelmed these days.
On Sunday my friends came over for another long walk and this time I brought my camera along. Naturally I forgot to bring an extra battery but I did get a few pictures before the battery in the camera ran out. It’s a start. I’ll get the hang of things again eventually.
The change of the landscape’s prevailing tint from green to brown is not a cheerful one. Look wheresoever one may, he is pretty sure, in November, to drift into a brown study, and this is seldom exhilarating. ~ Charles Conrad Abbott (Days Out of Doors)
I never noticed before this old abandoned car a little way off the trail. (above) It’s been completely filled with rocks. We wondered how long it’s been there.
beech leaves turning from green to yellow to brown
Also on Saturday my granddaughter and I took a walk and she found three broken-off beech twigs with yellow leaves intact. She brought them home and put them in a vase for me.
a schist sculpture of a Buddha figure from the 3rd century CE, from the Gandharan region of Pakistan, seated on a lotus throne, wearing ascetic robes
Friday we took Kat and her friend with us to the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill and saw the special Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists from Japan exhibit. We made good use of Tim’s new disability parking tag — a game changer. Once inside I quickly realized I forgot to leave my handbag in the car and was relieved when Kat offered to carry it for me.
Matsuda Yuriko enameled and glazed porcelain In Her Shoes, 2007 “This comically large foot, complete with long, painted toenails and a banana shaped heel, alludes to the fetishization of dainty feet.”
It was interesting seeing what interested the girls — they lingered and had lengthy discussions at a lot of the sculptures but zipped past all the paintings. It was nice listening to Tim asking them the kinds of teaching questions he’s so good at with kids. When he got tired there was a couch in the lobby where he rested.
I was distracted by the history of the museum itself, founded through the bequest of William Hayes Ackland, a Tennessee native. On the museum’s website, the Biography of William Hayes Ackland notes: “The Ackland is in the process of reckoning with its history and rethinking how we tell the story of William Hayes Ackland. Stay tuned for changes to these pages.”
Ackland’s body lies in a stone coffin in a little room off of the museum’s lobby. The exhibit label traces where his inherited money came from. He not only wanted the people of his native south to know and love the fine arts, but it seems to me he also wanted to make sure they remembered him!
“[His] will stipulated that the museum be named the William Hayes Ackland Memorial Art Center and that Ackland himself be interred in the building in a marble sarcophagus with a recumbent effigy.”
I can’t help wondering if the enlightening exhibit label will be changed if the current administration finds it out of alignment with its agenda. It will be nice when autumn comes and this cursed heat and humidity disappear. Getting back outside and enjoying the natural world; escaping from the reminders of tyranny that seem to be around every corner.
The clearing rests in song and shade. It is a creature made By old light held in soil and leaf, By human joy and grief, By human work, Fidelity of sight and stroke, By rain, by water on The parent stone. ~ Wendell Berry (This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems)
It seems like it’s been raining and dreary for the past couple of weeks — we even turned the heat on a couple of times. But we’ve been seeing a lot of interesting creatures outside our windows, like this baby bunny I caught with my camera. One morning I saw two opossums scrounging around in the leaf litter for food, and another time I saw a coyote trotting across the back yard.
One day when returning from grocery shopping we were very excited to find four fledgling Carolina wrens trying out their wings on the wax myrtle branches in our front yard. And those darling Carolina chickadees who nested in our birdhouse had some little ones, too. They flit about so quickly I can’t count them but there are at least three and I got to see a parent feeding one of them.
And one delightful afternoon Kat and I designed a dragon garden to fill in the unused birdbath in the front yard. 💜
