Hunting Island Driftwood, Luke Frazier
It took my wife, Allison, 10 years to convince me to let her paint my toenails. She considered it a hot style for the right kind of man, and evidently that was me. Her keen former-manicurist eyes told us so. About 2 years ago I finally said why not? Now I like how it looks and appreciate the pizzazz it adds to otherwise unadorned toe digits. It also functions like a litmus test of sorts when others observe it. I’ve had a couple of double takes, some furtive glances, and more than a few exclamations of appreciation, mostly from females. Nothing crazy for a color, mind you, tones of blue and green suggestive of an ocean’s palette is what I choose. In a peculiar way, it was this decision to embrace something different like painted toenails that helped launch us closer to living near the beach.
Living near water has been important to me forever. I’ve enjoyed being close to Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay, harbors and rivers of all shapes and sizes, up and down the East Coast. But the ocean is different. The writer Charles Bowden talks about The Great Plains being an “expanse and sensation more than a location,” and that is exactly how the beach feels to me.
Almost three years ago I walked the perimeter of Martha’s Vineyard Island,
covering 60+ miles over four days walking 6-8 hours per day (you can read about it here). In that great expanse I traveled through sensations and mystifications, losing track of time and distance (and, eventually, three toenails). The first day I was lashed by rain for all but about 45 minutes. On the third day I had to wade a rushing inlet, after all the days I was exhausted. When I flew home to Cleveland Ohio, I left a part of my spirit there. I knew I had to get back to living closer to the salt and sand to reclaim it. In August we made the move to Beaufort.
It had been nearly 40 years since I lived close enough to an ocean beach to consider it part of my life. I mean it has always been a part of my spirit life, and there have never been any significant gaps in getting to the beach for visits and vacations since the time I was in diapers, but I’m talking about it being part of my home life, where I live. Now my toenails are painted Beaufort Blue, and I live twenty-six miles from the Atlantic Ocean.
This is a profound fact, and the culmination of what started as wistful desire, morphed into longing, functioned as a regret for a brief while, turned into resolve in the time of COVID, and became a reality after a two-year stop in Knoxville, Tennessee. It came down to the “why not” and the decision to take a leap of faith.
Harbor River Bridge, Luke Frazier
Yesterday I got in my car and drove to the beach, not as part of any grand adventure or special vacation. My journey from my Mossy Oaks neighborhood starts with a glide over the McTeer Bridge, anticipation already building. I then navigate the Lady’s Island commercial cluster and cruise past the Executive Airport as the buildings start to thin out. I’m on Sea Island Parkway and bound for glory.
As I cross the bridge to St. Helena’s Island and make it through Frogmore the vibe gets more rural south and coastal combined, but it’s the turn right before the Shrimp Shack and Gay Fish Company that opens the view and starts the music in my head. The Harbor River bridge rises like a promise and for real you ain’t in Kansas anymore.
I landed on the southern side of Hunting Island beach and the atmosphere was
South Beach Hunting Island, Luke Frazier
crackling with clouds, waves, wind, sun, and shadows. But also suggestions, murmurs, declarations, and possibilities. There’s something about looking out over endless water that invites all the emotion and thoughts you can muster. When I go to the beach I enter a zone, and when I get into the water it becomes even more sublime and hard to describe. I become a part of it all and all of it becomes part of me. This is part of my reclamation process; I try to just listen and be there.
Then I got in my car and drove home, not to a hotel or Air BNB or friend’s house or rental cottage. Just home.
I’m hopeful this is just the beginning of sharing my reflections on life in the Lowcountry. There seems to be very real passion here for the visual arts, books, food, flora & fauna, God, guns, history, boats, and fishing. If I can offer a perspective that entertains or provokes a good ponder, then I will consider it a worthwhile endeavor. In the meantime, my lost toenails have all grown back, and they await their next color iteration, maybe a Port Royal teal?
