Lowcountry - Tumblr Posts
I learned the hard way what life is like without the salt marsh. I won’t make that mistake again.
Well… I’m retiring after this one fellas. It was a good run. I’m not topping this.
Moon rises over the ocean tend to sneak up on you. I’ve never planned to go watch one, but I always happen upon it. In a way, it finds me when I need it.
Rainy days on the marsh.
The endless beauty of a coastal marsh.
There’s an ocean behind all that fog.
The Egret: My Muse.
Birds eye view. Watching fiddler crabs or minnows.
Didn’t see the ghost of Drunken Jack Island last night, but I did indeed visit the fateful island. Sunset at Huntington Beach State Park. @shipwreckedwithcaptainmarrow Maybe I’ll catch ole Jack next time.
Every so often I’m outside, and I will take a picture that I can’t believe I get to add to my collection. Incoming- A gator who decided to show off for the camera.
A southern coastal setting is often the background to many love stories I’ve watched on screen. I think about the introduction to The Notebook, the birds flying above the Black River. Forest and Jenny. The list goes on and on. Take the people out of the plot, and there’s such a natural romanticism about the Lowcountry coast. It is a ripe setting for love. For me, that love starts and ends here. To feel so deeply connected to an area, and to love it so much. It’s hard to replicate. I fall in love with it over and over again.
When I decided to leave it two years ago, a piece of me was missing and I didn’t feel whole again until I was back. The fear of familiarity and the mundane consumed me. I’ve spent many of these summer days lamenting the cool air of the mountains, missing the summer days spent in the Appalachian creeks. An exciting deviation from the normal. I love it too. The way you love the excitement of an adventure, the rush, the constant of newness. Feeding into an adventurous rush. It’s hard to miss it. But…
I was empty there. I laughed and regularly lived in the awe of seeing places I’d never seen. I lost the familiar love of my life. The beauty in pointing my camera at yet another Egret. Watching the spartina grass finally hit its peak green in August. To then watch it fade to beige again. Seeing yet another lettered olive or little whelk along the beach. I will always pick them up. Watch the sun move over the horizon throughout the seasons.
I sat in my Greenville apartment all alone and decide to watch The Notebook movie because I had nothing better to do. The second those white birds flew over the Black River, a river I’ve spent so much time on, I would cry because I missed my birds. I missed seeing the things I regularly love. I felt like I was missing out on my own life.
Watching the coastal birds fly over to roost at the state park, watching the tide roll in and out. In and out. Who knew I would feel like I was missing out on something that seemingly never ended and something I saw every single day. I ultimately couldn’t take it. I gave up the promise of new sights and adventures to spent my days capturing yet another picture of some birds. To me, yes a waterfall is more magnificent than watching something I am use to. But that’s love. I look out at the cattails and brackish water. I listen to the Blue Herons abrasively honk. Who knows how many times I’ve been out in some marsh to watch it. It truly never gets old.
This area is romantic. At least for me. But not because of memories of lovers. No. This area is full of love for what it is. Something many people here deeply understand. When you see it through that lens, and you love it so much…. You can’t depart from it. It becomes the love of your life. Something I know I will grow old with.
If I make it to 80 or 90 years old, as long as I have strength to walk, you can find me out here among the wetlands. Over and over and over again. I love it more and more every time.
The South Carolina Lowcountry. My home. My heaven.
The other day among the live oaks.
A live oak and a coastal marsh. A most familiar scene along the southern coast.
The signs of a Lowcountry autumn.
It’s a labor of love. I’m sore, I’m a little sunburnt, and I’m so physically tired. But I love it so much. Nothing feels like home more than going out to the marsh bays and catching shrimp with my dad. My sister and I grew up along the muddy bays learning to catch shrimp. I remember us bobbing along as young children in his small metal John Boat. We were happy that my sister felt good enough to join, we did MAKE her wear a life jacket today though. No seizing into that muggy water for her. Lol.
Shrimping for us is different from the big commercial boats you see. Our process includes 10 bamboo poles, some bait balls, a cast net, and a long day. If we’re lucky. We take home the limit: a cooler full.
No matter how exhausting of a day it is, if we get back at a decent time. I make a point to cook a meal with some of that fresh shrimp. You don’t get fresher than that. Tonight’s meal was blackened Carolina shrimp, from-scratch Alfredo sauce, and fettuccine! Y’all… I wish I could share. It was as good as it looks.
Golden Hour signaling a wedge of white ibises in to roost.
This Little Egret and I engaged in a staring contest.
Magnolia Plantation & Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina, USA