Sunday, August 29, 2021

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

From a place of humility rather than from one of bragging, I can say that I have traveled quite a bit for a girl from a small, Eastern European country. I climbed many a mountain in my day, in several places in Romania, Turkey, all over the American Rockies and Smokies, as well as climbed a few cliffs and rocky Mayan temples in the Central American jungle. I have been hiking and climbing since I was 6 or 7 years old – not the professional, competitive type, I am a home body at heart, but the easy, relaxing type of hiking, where you can take it easy and stop (often) for a break and for pictures. Always stop for pictures. Trails and I are good friends. The best of them, really.

I even climbed a limestone mountain covered by thermal spring water in the heart of the Turkish dessert. I might have slipped here and there in my journeys, but never (that I can remember) fell. No. The fall was going to be on this skinny trail in the middle (not quite) of the Atlantic Ocean. At sea level, surrounded by nothing but water, with all the pelicans and gulls to watch over me and laugh.

I was fed up with the house. We have still been mostly isolating (less than last year, but still not back to our normal travel schedule yet), still being in the house too much this summer. We had to give up weekends and could not go anywhere because one time there was a shortage of gas (we could not venture too far from our town for fear of running out of it and not being able to find a gas station to refill). We had to give up a couple of weekends because of constant rain (tropical storm season!), or health reasons (ah, well, what can you do about that?!). But this weekend, we were going to be out, darn it. Come hell or high water, we were going to drive to the beach and just shoot some birds for a few hours. (Spoiler: nothing ever good will happen when you say “hell or high water”).

We had a lovely seafood meal at Elijah’s on Wilmington’s waterfront of the Cape Fear river, we walked the streets of the city in 108 degree (according to my car’s thermometer) heat, we visited The Bellamy Mansion on Market Street – a gorgeous ante-bellum mansion that speaks volumes about that gone with the wind era, and we finally headed to Carolina/ Kure beach to walk around Fort Fisher, a military fort since the times of the American Civil War.

The Cape Fear Memorial Bridge - Wilmington, NC

I have never seen this boardwalk this empty

Empty streets at Chandler's Warf in downtown Wilmington. The extreme heat at 1 PM sent everyone indoors, no doubt. 

The Bellamy Mansion, 1861

On the map, trying to plan for the trip to The Fort, I had seen these formations in the water that looked like a dam made of rocks piled together. The dam started at Fort Fisher and it kinda disappeared into the ocean, according to Apple Maps. It looked like a great place to shoot some water birds, fishermen’s boats, the Fort Fisher Ferry.

We parked outside The Fort and walked across some sand dunes towards the water. Then, we saw the dam – long, winding through the calm waters, the Cape Fear river on the right, the Atlantic Ocean on the left. Sea gulls, pelicans, cormorants were flying above and we were trying to catch some with our cameras. Crabs were burying in the sand and dragon flies were sunning on reeds. The air was paralyzed with heat. You could not even smell the salt of the ocean, because there was no breeze – everything was sleepy and silent, except for the chatty gulls every now and again.

Various shots around Fort Fisher and from The Rocks

A shot from The Rocks, looking out to their "end" which we did not reach...

I wanted us to walk those rocks as far as we could walk them. And we did. For as far … until bam! I went down like a billion pound sack of potatoes and rattled the world! The dam had not for one second seemed wet or slippery! I personally had not seen any warning signs that it might be. There were people on it, walking and taking in the ocean air, people fishing, kids running around, dogs prancing. The rocks were porous and dry, with the hot early afternoon sun baking them – 108 degrees, remember?!  I did not see one person losing a footing or wobbling in the very least. The fact that my foot all of a sudden slipped like I was walking on ice was a total shock. And down I went – sun glasses flew one way, my camera (around my neck) hit the ground hard, and my left thigh, knee, ankle, wrist, and elbow all served as cushion between the rest of my body and the black, grimy, probably algae-covered rock, where oyster shells were cemented probably for centuries, sharp side up (of course!) … The rock scraped my skin off my thigh in two areas about the size of dollar bills. The shells cut deep into my flesh in so many spots I can’t count. My first thoughts were: “Oh, please don’t let any bacteria run into my blood stream from this sea muck!” and “Ouch! That’s gonna hurt tomorrow!”

My husband was livid with worry, ensuring nothing was broken (nothing seemed broken or not working). We started walking towards the car. I guess this was as far as we could go.

Another couple with a dog saw this and offered help, even chocolate. I politely declined, but during our exchange both the lady and I noticed their dog was bleeding from one foot – the dog, too, had slid earlier, they shared, and probably cut one of the paws in the sharp oyster shells. I was walking just fine, but I could tell my thigh was starting to swell up. Thank goodness I am loaded with hand sanitizer, so, I bathed all the wounds in it even before we got to the car where we had disinfecting alcohol.

Back home, I did a little research on The Rocks, as the dam is called. Almost every site that had a story on them (a long rock jetty built and completed in 1881 to aid navigation by stopping shoaling in the Cape Fear River) warned against walking on them because they are slippery and sharp (who knew?!). They also said they connected Fort Fisher to Zeke’s Island and at high tide they become completely covered leaving tourists who walk them all the way stranded on the island. They mentioned in several spots how the local authorities are called frequently to tend to cuts and cruises from the frequent falls of unassuming foot travelers like us.

I hope you agree from some of the pictures – the walk was all worth it. It’s one of those “end of the world” feeling this place has, where the Cape Fear pours into the ocean. Would I do it again or recommend it: probably, yes to both, but … do your research before you go there, not after like me! Get some good shoes (people were walking in thong flipflops, I had hiking shoes on, and still!) with serious rubber grips and walk slowly! It’s definitely a place I wanted to explore, because it’s like no other I have ever explored. Now, I also have a heck of a tale to tell that will make it even more memorable. My childhood best friend’s grandpa used to tell us all the time that you never want a trip to be eventless, because you’ll never remember it. Well this one, friends, will be remembered for a long while to come …

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Missing My Sister. Something Awful ...

COVID sucks!

I have said for a year and a half now that I don’t really miss people. “This Covid separation is doable,” I say often. “There is Zoom, and Skype, and FaceTime. I’m good! What are people complaining about?!,” I say.  But darn it, I miss my sister! For more than two years now, I have walked around broken, incomplete, and empty because there is no prospect of seeing her yet.

I miss my sister in an organic, visceral way, in the sense of her person, with her nerves, and flesh, and sinews.

I miss our chats in person, over a glass of wine (her), bottle of beer (me), a bowl of chips or sunflower seeds. I miss her smell and her smile, her jokes and sass …Her picking on her children and making them laugh. Her children are my only competition at adoring her.

I miss her eye-rolls when I say something too serious and too worrisome. I miss her cooking and her quirkiness when she moves about the room. Her clumsiness when she knocks glasses full of liquid or plates full of food off the table and then shrugs it off with a laugh and her head thrown back … “It’s oohhh kaayyyy,” she pep-talks herself cracking up.

I miss our walks, as no one ever walks like her: this girl does not walk. She runs, rather. She fidgets. She hurries and jumps. She makes your ankles snap and your belly fat jiggle and she does not look behind, so you better keep up!

I miss her hugs – they are the best! I relive my entire life when she hugs me – I see us, children, short, and bony, climbing mountains, feeding farm animals or cats, chasing dogs and making hay or gathering mushrooms and wild berries. Falling asleep in the same bed, so exhausted, we don’t finish our sentences. I miss the sleepovers …

I miss her squeezing a cat or some creature and making funny voices, as if she speaks to babies. I miss her outpouring of love on every thing and every one … The enormous display of affection she has for everyone she loves – human or beast!


I miss her state of being the most: contagiously happy and caring, doing one of the things she does best: loving creatures and life ... 

I miss us painting our nails together and her restlessness, then giggles when she “messes up another nail” because the woman can’t sit still. Not even for a minute.

I miss looking into her deep, coal-black eyes – you can drown in those eyes, lost to the world forever. Those eyes tell my life story, just like her hugs …

I miss us watching Seinfeld on a loop and her laughter, out of control, rich, healthy, contagious. At every scene. Her reciting the lines …

We do FaceTime and Skype, but none of these are possible through those. None of the palpable, blood vessel against blood vessel, smell wrapped into smell, hand touch against skin real-ness – none of these are possible with FaceTime and Skype …

I miss her so much it hurts! It makes me gag and choke up, hopeless!

Two days before her birthday (yesterday), her country (Canada) opened their borders to Americans. This was the best present possible on her birthday for me. America is still not allowing Canadians into our country … I dream of a day, soon, before I whither away with longing, when we can be together again, even if it is for just 24 hours.

Till we make it to that day (and we will. I am sure of it!), happy birthday, sweet child! Happy birthday, my soulmate … I’ll fall asleep tonight with nothing but a head full of memories of times gone by and wishful longing for more, better times to come – soon. Till then, thank you for having shared your whole life with me. You are the biggest part of my life. You hold all the secrets and all the unsaids … I sometimes fail to know where you end and I begin …

I love you …