Pretty far east

(HATTERAS, N.C.) — It’s hardly raining in this tiny, shut up town, but the wind is so intense out there that it feels as though I’m in the midst of some great downpour. The trailer is being pitched from side to side, enough that I almost feel like I’m sitting on a boat instead of parked in a strip mall in the middle of the Outer Banks. Actually, a boat is where I should be right now, but they stopped running the ferry to Ocracoke Island a little after dark, about an hour ago. Except for my exposed camping spot, I don’t mind, though. It has been calming to be in my cold trailer and eat warmed canned food at my little dinette set. After a few weeks of constant (and absolutely great) human interaction, it’s perfect to be completely, unglamorously alone now. I like where I am.

This is a change from my last few days when part of me was living in the past and loving it. A few nights ago, my friend Jen from Moab, Utah called. She was giggly and joking with me as her new boyfriend played poker with my old roommate. She sounded ecstatically happy, and while I wasn’t in exactly the same mood, I got a pleasant contact high off her joy. Looking for more the next night, I called another Moab friend, Christy, who is fabulous and soulful and like a second mom to me. We talked for an hour about nothing in particular, and from that I got a shot comfort and understanding right into my heart. For a short time, memories of open desert, red rocks, and some of the best friends I have ever made were wafting through me. Thoughts of my Utah mistakes were as well, but even those had a tinge of nostalgia to them. I steeped in the complexity of both missing Moab and knowing that I can’t go back, at least not yet. The hard thing is that Moab is in my blood and my genes now. Not going back feels, in some small way, like I’m neglecting my family. And I’m not related to anyone there.

Good thing I have had such a nice run in the Tar Heel state to distract me.

North Carolina is not my home, not like the desert or Northern California is, but it still feels comfortable and familiar. The Outer Banks is a string of ghost towns in the winter, which is just how I like it. Though it’s huge, the ocean is a personal thing for me and I, perhaps selfishly, don’t like to share it with anybody. The other day I went running along the beach in Nags Head in the cold morning. It was thankfully desolate. I only saw one person in the far distance, but our paths never crossed. All I could hear were the sounds of the wind, my panting, my shoes hitting the hard sand and the layers of waves, curling and crashing at my side. The tide kept surprising me, kept trying to drench my shoes, but I was able to outrun it more often than not. The most enduring visual of those 45 minutes was the foam, which was blowing off the water. Disks of yellow white fluff were shooting down the beach with the grace of tiny hovercrafts. They were going 20 feet or so before dissipating. This happened again and again. It was subtle, no big thing, but I had never seen anything quite like it, and I felt lucky to be there. I hadn’t been that awake in a while.

This is about as awesome as multicolored duct tape can look.

This is about as awesome as multicolored duct tape can look. Wilmington, N.C.

North Carolina has been good to me pretty much since the day I entered it. My current Outer Banks evening is reminiscent of my trip’s first night in the state, which was spent in the rainy parking lot of a Panera Bread Co. There is an inexplicable romance to both these experiences. I guess falling for a place can be like falling for a person. It doesn’t necessarily have to make sense to feel real. The weird thing is that this state and I have a long history, and some of it isn’t positive. Anyone who has known me for a long while or been around me I’m feeling confessional knows that I used to visit North Carolina several times a year. From the time I was 18 until I was 22, this place was much of the backdrop for my long distance relationship with a man almost a decade my senior. It was important for both him and me, I think, but standing in the way was the distance thing, the age thing, our insecurities, my lack of world experience and his conservative tendencies. We had a connection but very, very little in common. It never felt real, and I knew I couldn’t do that forever. So, finally, I rejected him. Not so long later, I got scared and tried to crawl back, and he rejected me. The fallout on my end was massive. I entered a deep depression that didn’t fully lift for sixth months, not until I moved out to the desert of New Mexico on my own. Even years after I pulled myself out of that funk, North Carolina still represented nothing more to me than failure, shame and the feeling of being completely, utterly crazy.

Now it doesn’t. That’s a bolt of magic.

My host, her bling and her friend. Wilmington, N.C.

My host, her bling and her friend. Wilmington, N.C.

Who or what do I thank for this? Part of me likes the idea that things changed because I did. Maybe everything is different now because I finally came here as a more grown up person, not just someone’s supportive yet painfully awkward girlfriend. I’m sure that’s some of it, as is my huge appreciation of the state’s gorgeous coastline, but perhaps the answer is much more basic than all that. Honestly, I think I simply got lucky and met a bunch of people who were friendly. In Wilmington, there was my Cary Bradshaw-esque host who brought me right into the heart of her world and introduced me to so many of her friends without any reservations. There was that guy, the published author, with whom I could commiserate about the pain and beauty of trying to get stuff down on a page. There was the girl with whom I had such an intense and focused conversation over a few beers. There was the bartender who gave me half a dozen CDs. And that’s just a taste. Even here in the Outer Banks, I have still managed to find strangers who have wide-open arms for me. You’ll hear more about them soon. I only want to explain that this North Carolina beauty and ease seems to be everywhere.

So when I say I like this state, know that I am biased. On this trip and in my life, I have yet to find much that feels better than being around people who welcome me. Right now, I can’t separate my experience of North Carolina from that warm, sweet surge of acceptance. I can’t and I don’t want to.

Christmas in Wilmington, N.C.

Christmas in Wilmington, N.C.

Downtown Wilmington.

Downtown Wilmington.

My host, Alyssa, dressing down for a night out in Wilmington.

My host, Alyssa, dressing down for a night out in Wilmington.

Good meeting you.

Good meeting you.

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>