Our first full day in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, was April 5th, the day of more than 1,200 protests all over the country. A week before, I had checked the socials for a protest near me, but the closest I got was a two-and-a-half-hour drive away, in Raleigh. But we learned immediately that a protest had popped up in nearby Beaufort, which made my heart swell.
In this deep-red town in a deep-red state, at least 400 protesters showed up with their beautiful signs, children, and dogs: veterans; disabled folks; truck-drivin’, beer-gutted men in baseball caps; young couples; a pride-dressed man and his trans woman-friend; and, of course, protest staples the 50+ white lady. Those are my peeps. We are mad as hell and having a good time showing it.
NGL: I cried more than a few times, once, ironically, during the Pledge of Allegiance. Being in a crowd of 100,000 in DC with my family would have been awe-inducing and probably overwhelming. But being here gave me tangible hope. Blue—and probably a few red—voters are willing to show up in public in an open-carry state to protect the Constitution, science, school lunches, education, veterans’ services, social security, and the winner of their state supreme court race.
My first full day of vacation was a blast!
Emerald Isle has been beautifully sunny, defying all weather reports. It rained once, overnight, and the wind has prohibited lengthy enjoyment of the beach and the sound, but we’re finding plenty of places to wring all the vitamin D out of the sun. My burned feet object a little.
On Tuesday, we took the ferry with Jane’s sister, Mary (which I only said because it rhymes), to Shackleford Island, home of horses and whelk shells. We spent two and a half hours combing the beach for souvenirs to take home, though I spent more time taking pictures and trying to identify shorebirds. Nearby were sandwich terns, royal terns, and Forster’s terns (essentially a laughing gull with orange feet and an orange beak), so my bird game had taken a tern for the better.
The sunsets have been beautiful; the company, divine.
I’ve become an easy traveler in my old age. I’ll do everything and nothing. I need my daily pill regimen, good morning coffee, an afternoon IPA, a pack of smokes, and a camera. Taking a vacation from work is guilt-free for me. What could happen in a week or two? But it’s impossible for us to take a vacation from this administration. It’s everywhere. We’re like pieces of pumice, with a new hole in our skin for each atrocity that pecks away at us.
I still wake up every day to news from my new besties, Heather, Jessica, Rebecca, Robert H., Robert R., and Adam, and I read it all in lieu of leisurely puzzle-doing. Trying to pick through the bad news for something good is like combing the beach for a single shell that isn’t broken.
Artist’s Statement: I break things and put them back together in a random,
yet tasteful, order. I make the big small and the small big—
in words, photographs, and visual art.
But I’m not the typical beachcomber. I go looking for the broken bits. My shells are not destined for a Southern Living spread. I’m on the hunt for patterns, colors, textures. I choose weather-worn whelks, oysters with barnacles, tile-flat bits. My biggest prizes are moon shells and periwinkles, the ones that look most like they once housed a snail, their centers looking back at me like eyes or perky, non-protruding nipples. I found a piece of a helmet shell that looks like an evil, toothy grimace. With two periwinkles, I have created “The Face of the Resistance.”
We listen to CNN in the car and talk over it, opining about how easy it is to break things and how hard it will be, if even possible, to put those things back together. We agree that the damage done cannot be undone. In one second, you can smash a glass vase on the floor. But trying to glue each piece back together to recreate it will likely take weeks. And it won’t hold water.
We’re going to need a new vase.
Some people argue that the vessel that has held your flowers for decades had a chip somewhere, a fleck of paint worn off, or, absurdly, that we shouldn’t be able to enjoy flowers anymore, so the vase had to go. Only the billionaires have the luxury of flowers.
These fragments come in at a furious pace. One day, it’s a Supreme Court ruling that can’t be reckoned with. The next, it’s punitive tariffs. Close on its heels are the SAVE Act passed by the House, the abolition of the FDIC, and the possibility of disappearing legitimate U.S. citizens.
It’s hard not to retreat from these injuries. You’re on vacation, but you can’t just toast marshmallows while the dumpster fire rages.
Saying “woosah” while gesticulating with your arms is no remedy for the glass in your feet. Just stand there and feel the air whooshing through your pockmarked soul. It’ll be over soon.
The vase analogy is insanely good.
Splendid!