If I disappear, it's quite likely my better half has gotten home before I managed to plant all my new hen and chicks, and has murdered me. This is seriously only about a fifth of them!
Last Friday, February 12, Charleston received its first measurable snowfall in a decade. Schools and businesses closed early in anticipation (some didn't open at all), and I was happy to be sent home at 4:45. Everyone was buying supplies like bread and milk, and people were apparently buying coal shovels from the big box home stores, since they don't even sell snow shovels down here. I played cool, rolling my eyes at everyone who was driving at 30 mph on the highway, but when the snow started falling I gave myself away as a Southerner when Sue suggested we go out for dinner by shrieking that we couldn't go anywhere, the roads were too dangerous. I immediately clarified coolly that it was the other drivers who were dangerous, but then gave myself away again by wailing that the bridges were probably sheets of ice.
I struggled to button my jeans over a pair of pyjama pants for layering and took Lainey out for a romp around midnight in the huge field near our house. I was so charmed to see the thick, white flakes settle on my black coat. I went to school in Massachusetts, but it's been years and I'd forgotten the soft sound snow makes as it's falling. Lainey was thrilled, running around like a wild woman and catching snowballs in her mouth, shaking them viciously and then searching the ground for the exact piece of snow that I'd thrown.
In all, we got between 3-5" of snow. It was neat to imagine all the kids younger than about 13 or 14 years old who had never seen or couldn't remember seeing snow.
Yesterday was another day of the sort that lets you know spring is struggling to break through. The morning was grey and rainy, but the air was warm. I took the air plants out to the porch and hung them up so they could bask in the humidity. I have them rigged up on hangers, and even I think they are a bit unsightly, but they're so happy swirling around in the warm, humid breeze that I can't bear to bring them back inside.
I wanted to take the dog somewhere, and waited for the sky to clear—it was nearly black to the west, and I waited to see which direction it was moving. After some hours, the sky was still grey and threatening to burst any minute. so I realized I was just going to have to take my chances. I bundled Lainey in the car, where she curled up sweetly in the back seat, and drove down to the beach.
It was really windy, but there were hardly any people there. A group of men was playing soccer on the sand, using the yellow metal trash cans pained with palm trees as their goals. There was a lot of foam on the shore, and I passed two children playing with it like it was snow. I suppose it'd the best we can do down here.
There were lots of gulls, and I spent a long time next to a woman who was feeding them, tossing bread up in the air so they were flying low in a cloud over her head. Her two dogs were off leash, and patient, not trying to catch the birds at all. A little boy walked up and wanted to try, and she gave him some bread. It was really magical.
After a nearly historic cold snap, the weather seems to want to make amends, with a spate of sunny, nearly 70-degree days. Today at lunch I decided to drive the ten minutes to the beach. My eyes, deadened by the glare of the computer screen taunting me with errant commas, superfluous capitalization, and subject/verb disagreement all morning, forgave me as the car crested the final bridge over the marsh and they saw the ocean open up before me.
The thermometer in my car said it was 66 by my office, but it had cooled down to 57 by the ocean. I looked around in my car for a jacket, but couldn’t find one. No matter—I was more concerned with keeping the loose sand out of my shoes, and it didn’t end up feeling too cold. The tide was out, and I saw lots of strange bubbly things on the sand. I went closer and saw they were clams, their bright pink flesh peeking out of the open shells. I couldn’t tell if they were dead or alive, if they’d been stranded by the tide or if they enjoyed getting some fresh air, but as I walked by, one snapped itself shut. I was surprised it could move so fast!
This beach tends to not have intact shells by the time they make it to shore, but I found some really lovely snail shells and shell pieces which I plan to incorporate in some new terrariums on etsy. I really enjoy examining the sea creatures that wash up on the shore—it may seem macabre, but it’s really better than any aquarium to me, because it’s nature being acted out in front of me. It’s always interesting to see what’s there, because they usually wash up in large numbers, and it always makes me wonder what’s going on in the ocean. Today there were lots of starfish. The ones closest to the water were still soft, and I tossed some back, pretending their grey-blue bodies were soft because they still had some life in them and not just because they were wet. I saw a crab I’d never seen before, a little pot-bellied spotted thing that was impossibly cute. There were some really lovely pink sea urchins, which I’d never seen on the beach before. I saw the shell of a huge horseshoe crab, its body picked clean by seabirds.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera for any of this stuff, but awhile back, I took Lainey to the beach and there were dozens and dozens of horseshoe crabs washed up. I took this picture then:
Although I am impatient for glorious 80-degree weather, I am also dreading the onset of spring, as I know the area will be congested by tourists once more. It will be a small miracle to snag a parking space on the street across from the beach, rather than having my choice of the empty stretch of parking spaces yawning before me, the parking meters bagged in heavy green material for the season.
I was so bewildered this weekend when traffic to my etsy store shot up practically a thousandfold. The number of people who had marked me as a favorite shop literally doubled in one day. After some digging around, I discovered that my Worlds Away terrarium kit was featured in an etsy article on home decor. How exciting!!
