As a 5th generation California native, my scope of the United States began and ended with sunny skies, schoolmates like me, patriotism, cowboys and hard work as the way to success. My g-g-grand-father is listed among the 10,000 original pioneers who founded the Golden State in the late 1850’s.
Being a caboose, born to parents in their late 30’s, I was short on travel and long on whatever else I wanted. I was spoiled. But, it took my boyfriend (Hubs now) to take me on my first trip to Yosemite when I was 22, even though I lived only a few hours away, growing up.
After marrying my world traveling Hubs later that year, I began my 38 year journey of seeing SO many places in this beautiful world. So many. And we have lived in a few as well, as locals and not just a passer-through. The best way.
We just took a few days and drove up to the southern part of Georgia, because I wanted to see one more place. Savannah. We booked a cottage along a tidal marsh, whose waters rose and fell with the predictable tides of the ocean. The silence was so enveloping in the late afternoon light that you could wrap it around you like a blanket. It was as if the birds had gone home for the night and shut their front doors and the evening program for marsh sounds had not yet made it to the stage. When the tide rolled out, the sulfur smell of the muddy banks cloaked itself in the humid air and magnified each breath we took. It was a natural smell of earth, life, death and growth all at the same time.
We would see Savannah tomorrow, but tonight we would enjoy the Spanish moss hanging off the trees and a delicious dinner at a local mom and pop crab shack. I enjoyed every second of the experience that was so very different from everything I had ever seen in my life. We really do live in such a diverse and wondrous country.
The stories those trees could tell, if the eerie faces imagined on some of them could talk. The history, from the birth of a great nation to the echoes of a civil war; made evident by the historical markers that dotted each road we traveled. Every era left its mark upon the land. We spotted the occasional brick pillar that once formed the entrance to plantations and farms, now sagging and forgotten. But the past left it’s mark, whether it was in the realm of the obvious or the unseen. It was ours for the perceiving, if we chose.
As the sun sank into the western sky, the marshland changed its hue by the second. We watched the orb of pink slide behind the trees and reeds, turning them black in silhouette. It was absolutely a gift from God, this scene. It was mesmerizing and we didn’t bother to even take a photo, because, well, you know how that goes. It is never as good as the picture you take away in your mind and it truly would have been a waste of our time. Like so many things we take photos of…waste of time instead of living in the moment.
Then, the silence disappeared and the marshy areas burgeoned with sounds I had never heard before. The culmination of frogs, crickets, cicadas, owls, and every night creature with a song came together in a symphony of screams, chirps, ribbits and buzzes. The blackness took on a magical feeling with a hint of eerie. And, those little teeny critters somehow made me feel quite small. All of them rose up together, and as if an unseen conductor tapped his baton, they all joined in a simultaneous chorus because that is just what they do.
All the history that the marsh, trees, moss, dirt and generations of wildlife had seen, and yet they were still there. Doing what they and their predecessors had always done. In spite of the humans who seem to cause destruction and ugly degradation with their selfish, self-serving intentions, the purity of our Creator is somehow most pure in those things that he created before man. Why is that?
Yes, we did make it to Savannah and it was as lovely as they say. More later.
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I have lived across the GGate, in WA, OR, GA and now FL. It has been rich in learning in every area. It would have been harder had I had a connected family, but that was not my soul's journey. 👍💕
That was a much better picture than if you had just shown us your 4x6 in a pretty frame. I so love your take on life and your experiences. You have a way of bringing us into your journey so it feels like we are peeking out of your pocket. You give a great perspective. Thanks!