Here

Well, we're home and I wish I could say that all the ghosts have been exorcised, all the anxiety has been relieved, that my love for the island is as it was so many years ago but I would be lying if I said that.

It was so beautiful. Dog Island is beautiful. There are piney woods and there is the Gulf beach and there is the bay and there is swamp and marsh. There are oak trees and the pines, palmetto and sea grass. There are wildflowers and wild rosemary. There are the birds from the giant blue heron to the tiny Mexican doves which come to the bird bath by the porch. There is life everywhere you look.
And the people were there too, this weekend. Almost every house I saw was occupied which is something I have never seen before. Children and parents, boats anchored, people fishing and swimming and walking the flats at sunset's low tide as Mr. Moon and I do. All of us there, getting in the last of the goodness of it before it is killed. I can say it no more clearly than that.


There is more life in those muddy tidal flats than you can imagine. And of course, with every step we took, I wondered how long all of those creatures- the big and the small- will be alive in a month.




When we were coming across the bay a pod of dolphins met us and we stopped and they played around us and I tried to take pictures but it's almost impossible, and I prayed that those creatures are smart enough to get the hell out of Dodge before the oil slick covers the still-clear waters, blue and green, and turning teal and turquoise under the setting sun. Turning into a misty silver blue after the sun has dipped below the horizon. That water.

The old Land Rover started right up which is a small miracle in and of itself. Here. I took a picture of myself in one of the mirrors as we drove along the sandy road:

And the house was waiting for us, still standing. Always another miracle. It needs painting, the deck off the side is falling off, the steps are not so sure, but there it was.

A tiny frog, friendly and spotted, was perched just above the door knob as I went to unlock it.

The view out the back was as gorgeous as ever. The water was still, the air was too.

The two sentinel pines still stand but the beach grows smaller every month and there is only a strip of sand where there used to be a beach and I know that one day they will be gone, those beautiful pines, unless a storm somehow brings us more sand. It happens. The island shifts and changes, it has forever.

And I was happy to be there but I was not. I tell you this- I think the suffering I did while I was in that house was more profound than I even know. It was hard and what made it even harder was the beauty of it all. Add to that the death which is surely flowing our way and well, bittersweet doesn't even begin to describe how I felt this weekend.

Saturday morning Mr. Moon got up before sunrise to go pick up Jessie and two of his friends to go offshore fishing and when I got up in the empty house, I felt panicked. I couldn't eat. I decided to go for a walk before it got too hot. I left the house with a bottle of water and the camera, sunscreened and with my hat on and I walked on the Gulf for awhile where I took this picture of how clear the water is:

A man was swimming with a dog and when I walked by, the dog barked at me and tried to swim in as if to get me. I knew it was false threat but it added to my anxiety as did the blank shore of the Gulf. I do not love the Gulf side of the island the way I love the bay side. The bay has trees and so many different birds. The Gulf has that endless water, the white sand, the houses which are losing their footing as the water creeps up closer and closer and the unrelenting sun which even at ten in the morning beats down with a powerful force. I stripped down to my bathing suit and got in the water and let it rush over me and breathed into the current. I tried to slow my heartbeat. I tried to cool my body.
I crossed back over to the bay and made my way home. I found a wedding bouquet of balloons, so incongruous and odd in the dunes where the birds are nesting.

I took its picture. I wondered who the bride and groom were and where they were married. I thought about their hearts soaring as the balloons were released after the vows were said. I tossed them back into the air and they floated for a moment but came back down to earth.


Mr. Moon and Jessie came back home and brought a cobia to clean for me to cook. We played cards, I lost every hand. I was so happy to have that man and that girl back with me. The house let go of its sadness for awhile and we drank beer and listened to Prairie Home Companion and made bawdy jokes as did the people on the show. I made the most beautiful pie I've ever made, rolling out the crust with a bottle full of wine from the refrigerator.


We watched the sunset again, we walked the flats again. At this time of day, there is no way to take a bad picture. Everything is lit with magic. Everything is every thing and a metaphor for it all, lit with that ethereal light.


If there is anything more beautiful than a sunset over the water I don't know what it could be.


One's child, perhaps, sitting in the glow of it. That could be more beautiful.

We ate cobia that night, as firm and fresh as any fish I've ever eaten, and okra cooked with tomatoes and onions and corn and peppers. We watched a Northern Exposure episode in which a circus comes to town and the Flying Man falls in love with Marilyn.

We slept. We got up and I was anxious again. We did the laundry, washed all the sheets and towels, I took a picture of the pines beside the house.


And the dragonfly which sits on top of the lightening-blasted flag pole.

We packed the clothes, the left-overs, the shrimp and crab we bought on the way down we never ate, the sea trout Mr. Moon caught this morning in the surf.
We came home.

We are home.
The chickens are all here. Hank took good care of them. Mr. Moon cleans off the boat. I need to go marinate some shrimp and the trout for our dinner.
I am filled with it all and don't know where I am- here or there. Writing this, I am back there. Stopping and looking around, I am here where my phlox is beginning to bloom everywhere, bringing a pink-purple color to the palate of the green which is my yard in Lloyd. A color not unlike the sunset on Dog Island where I know the sun is setting, where I know the water, at this moment, is still clear and where all the creatures, at this moment, are safe.

People change. Their hearts and minds change. So do islands. So do bodies of water. Some change is good and some is uncomfortable and some is deadly.

We experience what we can while we can. We cross the water, the boat carries us to this side, to that, our hearts carry us up like a bouquet of balloons and then fall back down, a craziness of gold and purple in the white-sand dunes.

We think about it, we hold it all in our hearts, those crazy up-and-down hearts. We consider ourselves lucky, no matter what. We play the hands we're dealt, we do the best we can. We hold tightly to the hands of those we love.

We breathe and cool our bodies in the water. We make a pie. We fry a fish. We cook some grits.

We come home.

We do.