‘The Waterman’ by Molasses Creek plays on the car stereo as I ride the ferry back to Cedar Island for the long drive home. The song fills me with the peace, the love, and the truth of life that Ocracoke Island gave to me while I was there. “Darling don’t go…,” I hear the gentle harmony cooing from the stereo as I hear it carried on the breeze from the island. But as the Waterman knows, no one said this would be easy. As he must face the cold water for his living, so must I go home for mine. Like him, I love this life I’ve chosen.
Sometimes this world seems to get the better of me. My schedule steals so much of my time that I forget how much more important the minutes are than the hours. The time it takes to listen to your child’s story, to gaze for a moment at the sunrise or the stars in the sky, to send a card to a cherished friend or give a smile to a stranger, these are the moments that matter. These are the moments that fill our hearts with joy and our spirits with awe at the beauty of the world around us. But our lives become so filled with meetings and errands and the myriad of things that must be done, we begin to believe we just don’t have the time to stop for a second and breathe in life.
I had a free weekend from work while my son was gone for spring break, and I had a million things to tend to. As I thought about how many projects I could plow through in three days without my son at home, a small voice in my heart was whispering. “Take the time. Go away somewhere. Someplace where you can still your mind. Someplace where you can hear me when I talk to you.” Of course I told the small voice to hush, there was just too much to do. “How can you possibly know what you need to do if you cannot hear me?” my heart questioned. “Good point,” I acknowledged, but still, I had a million things to do!
Work and school had devoured another day as I drove home Wednesday night. Another missed sunrise, another missed sunset, another day so draining I didn’t have the energy to go to Starbucks and write, as I love to do. Writing and reading are my true passions. Too often once work and school and home and my son and the details of life are tended to, there is little of me left to tend to my passions. “Another day lost to life’s demands,” I thought to myself, “rather than lived by my heart’s desires.”
“You can’t know my desires if you don’t stop long enough to hear me,” scolded my heart. “Someday you won’t hear me at all. Then you will live life in useless productivity, purposeless no matter how purposeful it seems because you lived it for your mind, or for others, or for society’s expectations, never stopping to ask me what is your true purpose. Only when you near death’s door will you finally understand that only I know your true purpose, and in that moment of clarity you will know that your life was wasted.”
I knew the truth of the words from my heart. “Follow your heart. It knows the way,” was one of my treasured maxims in life. “How can you follow me if you don’t even listen to me?” my heart queried. I looked at my to do lists, chose the things that truly had to be done, and stayed up all night Thursday tending to life’s demands. At five o’clock in the morning I backed my convertible out of the driveway and headed out of Charlotte.
I really didn’t know where I was going, but I knew the ocean was calling me more than the mountains. It is funny the way the waves lapping against the shore can clear your mind of life’s nonsense and make you remember what really matters. Florida, Charleston, Myrtle Beach, where should I go? Despite the fact that lighthouses have been one of my loves for many years, I hadn’t yet been to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It seemed as good a place as any to quiet my mind and listen to my heart.
As I turned east on Highway 24, the sun was rising. Gentle rolling hills surrounded me as the mist cleared and the day brightened. With nothing to do but drive, I could actually absorb the beauty of the world. Somewhere inside my soul I could hear my heart humming, peacefully, soothingly. “This was a good decision,” I thought to myself. “Told you so,” my heart teased.
I truly had no clue where exactly I was going. Just somewhere I could hear the ocean, see a lighthouse, and listen to my heart. From the map it seemed I could enter the Outer Banks from the south, the north, or somewhere in the middle. I still didn’t know which way I would choose. I just drove. I passed through little towns that covered less than a square mile. I meandered through hills and valleys that slowly began to flatten as I crossed the state. I drove through quaint towns with courthouse circles where the speed limit was only 20 mph. “How in God’s creation could anybody live someplace where the speed limit is 20 mph!” I thought to myself. “I would go insane!” As I passed Army trucks in Fayetteville, I began to see boats on trailers and kayaks on car roofs. “I’m getting closer,” I thought, “closer to the ocean, closer to wherever it is that I am going.”
At Jacksonville the road split. The sign said “Morehead City, 24 East” to the right; “New Bern, 17 North” to the left. “I saw New Bern in a travel guide,” said my mind. “The book said it is a good place to stay as a base from which you can foray in different directions. Let’s go left.” “Go right,” said my heart. No reason, just “Go right.” I hesitated a moment, logic trying to prevail, then remembered why I had come on this trip in the first place. I turned right.
Exhaustion was setting in as I passed through Morehead City. By the time I reached Beaufort it was joined by hunger, nature’s call, and a massive headache. I was getting irritable as I pulled into the gas station on the west side of Beaufort. I fixed myself a sandwich, took two Tylenol, and decided I had better figure out where I was going and get there before I was too tired to drive safely. Eating my lunch, I read through the travel guide. Where was I going anyway? Beaufort boasted some interesting places to see, but I didn’t want to stay there, and my aching head was yelling at me to get somewhere I would stop for the night. The travel guide said Ocracoke was a fun place to just hang out, pointing out that if all you do is drive through, you have missed most of what it has to offer.
I like that kind of place – where you have to explore to find its character and fascination. I don’t like being just another tourist following the sightseers to the touted places of interest like sheep following the shepherd’s will without questioning their own desires. Ocracoke sounded intriguing. From there I could continue on to Cape Hatteras and see the heralded Guardian of the Graveyard of the Atlantic in its new location.
Judging from the map, it looked like I was going to have to take a ferry. A friend had told me something about ferries in the Outer Banks after his visit a couple weeks before. He had stayed in Nags Head and taken the ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke. “They are free and pretty quick,” he had told me. “You may have to wait for one, but they run every half-hour or so.” “Sounds easy enough,” I thought.
I decided to head for Ocracoke. Once there I would figure out whether to stay for the night or go on to Cape Hatteras. I drove back out on the road, tempted by the signs. “Beaufort Waterfront.” “Ferry to Cape Lookout.” Maybe I should stop at one of the restaurants and enjoy the ocean fare. “No frolicking, Sherry, we need to get where we are going,” my mind snapped. I passed a strawberry patch open to the public. “Mmmmm, strawberries!” I thought. “Let’s stop.” “No!” my mind shouted.
Some of my fondest memories of my children when they were growing up was going to the wild blackberry and strawberry patches and filling basket after basket with the tender, sweet-tasting fruits of spring. We once picked so many berries, I was hard-pressed to find enough recipes to use them all. Even a family of five can only eat so much blackberry cobbler and strawberry shortcake.
“We have to get where we are going!” my mind scolded, as images of my children picking berries pervaded my memory. “Now wait just a minute,” I thought. “I came on this trip to wander, to explore, and to listen to my heart. If I want to stop and explore, that is exactly what I should do!” I promised myself the next time I passed something that intrigued me, I would go investigate. Since I was driving 20 miles over the speed limit, I was well past the strawberry fields and decided not to go back. “There are bound to be some more down the road. I will stop then,” I thought. It’s funny how we always think missed opportunities will pass our way again, especially given how rarely they do. Of course, I never saw another berry patch.
I came to another fork in the road. “Cedar Island Ferry” to the left or “70 East to Atlantic” to the right the sign said. “Let’s go to Atlantic, just to see it,” I thought. “No! We’re going to the ferry!” my mind snapped as the car turned left. Half a mile down the road, I stopped the car, u-turned, and went back to the fork in the road. “I came to explore and by gosh I am going to explore!” I exclaimed as I headed down Highway 70 to Atlantic.
There really wasn’t much to see, at least not on a quick drive through. I did, however, stop to take pictures of two houses that were dressed to the nines in Easter decorations. I am a fanatic for Christmas decorations and was delighted to see other people afflicted with FHD – fanatical holiday decorations disease. “Funny,” I thought to myself as I traced my path back to the road to Cedar Island, “that one little detour likely changed this entire weekend. It will be a completely different experience just because I drove down a dead end road and took a couple pictures of Easter houses.”
I wonder sometimes if that is really true – if one little detour can change your life forever or if you just come back on the same intended path a little further down the way. These thoughts filled my mind as I drove what was beginning to seem like an endless road. It was clear now from the road signs that I would have to take a ferry to Ocracoke. I had never been on a ferry in my life – boats, yes, but never one big enough you could drive a car onto it. I am generally pretty good about stepping up to the plate when it comes to new experiences and adventures, but not without some trepidation of the unknown. “How long was this road anyway?” I whined. It looked like a short stretch on the map, but I felt like I had driven it for hours.
Finally, up ahead, I saw it – my first ferry landing. “Why do they have a motel out here in the middle of nowhere?” I thought to myself. Little did I know. I pulled up to the man in a tan uniform and asked rather sheepishly, “I’ve never been on a ferry. What am I supposed to do?” “Do you have a reservation?” he asked. “A reservation?” I repeated. “No, I thought you just waited in line.” He kind of chuckled as he waved me over to the right. “That’s the standby line,” he said. “Be back to your car by two-thirty in case you make the three o’clock ferry.”
“Three o’clock! It’s only twelve!” my mind screeched. “And what’s this in case I make the three o’clock ferry? I understand the concept of standby from air travel, but if you are there three hours early you always make the flight!” I then realized there were around fifteen cars already in the standby lane. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “this doesn’t look good.” My only other option was to go back the way I came and circle around to Manteo. “There is no way in you-know-where that I am driving back down that endless road!” I declared out loud.
“We’ll just make the best of this,” I thought to myself. “Check out the shops. Walk around a bit. Take a quick catnap. After all you came to slow down a little. So that’s what you’re doing,” I appeased myself. “I came to slow down, not stop and wait for a bloomin’ ferry!” exclaimed the grumpy, tired, hungry side of me. “It will be fine, just two and a half hours,” I reassured myself. I wandered through the store and picked up some brochures, a few postcards, and a couple of trinkets for my son. I stopped to visit with a border collie and his owner. She was a professor down from Fargo. We talked for about thirty minutes then she said she should get back to her husband. “We’ll have lots of time to talk on the ferry,” she said as she was leaving. “You’ll have to meet my husband. You two have the same travel habits – just wander rather than plan. I like to plan.” I thought to myself as I walked away, “What did she mean by lots of time to talk on the ferry? I thought it was 30 or 40 minutes? Oh well, maybe she’s already on vacation time and thirty minutes seems like a lot of time…”
I walked along the water’s edge for awhile then headed back to my car. “I should probably look up something about where this ferry is going to land,” I thought. I flipped through the brochures I had picked up in the store, one of which was a ferry schedule. “Well this would have been helpful to have had earlier,” I said out loud as I opened it to see where else I was going to have to deal with this ferry experience. “Oh, that’s the one I’m on. Cedar Island to Ocracoke, 2 ¼ hours – Two and a quarter hours! I’m going to be on this boat for over two hours!” I shrieked. “Oh God! I had a million things to do and now I’m spending five and a half hours to go 23 lousy miles! I love wandering without a purpose but it is nice to actually be in motion when I wander! Oh brother!” I groaned.
“Come on, Sherry, you can make the best of this,” I said reassuringly. “Just take a nap. You’ll feel better if you sleep a little while.” I woke up an hour later, burned but somewhat refreshed. They were starting to load the cars. “See that wasn’t so bad was it? There go the cars in the first stand by line.” I was the first car in the second line. “OK now, why is the guard lady walking up to my car. No, just signal me up to the ticket window, don’t tell me…” “I’m sorry,” said the lady in tan, “you’ll have to wait for the next one.” The next one? The next one! When on earth will that be? “It leaves at six o’clock,” she said. “Oh God. What am I doing here?” I moaned.
As it turned out, the next few hours went rather quickly. June at the Driftwood Motel was sweet enough to call ahead to Ocracoke and make reservations for me. Apparently, the island was pretty small and I would likely have been sleeping in my car if not for her. All too often in life we focus on the bad things people do and forget to recognize how many good, caring people do special things everyday, even for strangers. She could have told me there would be no rooms and persuaded me to stay at her motel, take the morning ferry, and thus make some money for her own business. Instead she called six different places until she found a room for me. I searched for a few things to buy in her shop, just to show my appreciation in what little way I could.
As I headed back to my car, I noticed a group of people sitting in portable chairs, drinking beer and wine, and smoking cigars around a red convertible Triumph with the stereo blaring. “Now that’s the way to make the best out of a long wait!” I hollered at them. They laughed and raised their glasses.
When my husband and I used to take our three kids to amusement parks, we always had a blast waiting in the lines. We’d play clapping games like Miss Merrymack and Say-say-my-playmate. We’d have tickle fights and make up silly little walks. Our favorite was always the wizard walk from the ‘Wizard of Oz’. We would leave one ride and skip gleefully like Dorothy and her friends singing, “We’re off to see the Wizard!” as we headed for the next long line. The ghostbusters walk was a little more appropriate when we were in the lines though. Sometimes you’d run square into people wizard walking!
It always amazed me that people would pay thirty to a hundred dollars a piece to go to theme parks, knowing they would spend half the day in line, and then be mad that they had to spend half the day in line. It amazed me even more how many would glare at us because we were having a good time. Now and again we would find recruits to have fun and be silly. You could watch the positive energy gain momentum as others realized that the wait could be part of the fun instead of a drag. Sometimes we could turn a whole line. Most of the time, though, we were one happy little family in a sea of grumpiness.
Those are the moments I spoke of earlier. We get so focused on where we are going, we forget to take a moment and enjoy where we are. Standing in line at an amusement park is a great time to bond with your children. How often do you really have the chance to just be still with your children and entertain one another with your spirit and your love for each other? Those are precious moments. They shouldn’t be wasted.
I saw the same thing at the ferry. Most people in their cars, surly and irritated, but a few making the best of it. “Good for them!” I thought, as I settled back into my car. Two minutes later there was a tap on my window. One of the fun-lovers invited me back to their little party for a beer. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but after five hours of waiting for that ferry, seven hours driving, and a twenty-four hour workday, that was the best beer I think I have ever had in my life. Sharing it with people who knew how to enjoy every moment in life, how to make extraordinary moments out of the most ordinary times, made it even better.
They raved to me about Ocracoke, telling me what a wonderful place it was and how often they came to visit. One of the guys was moving to Kansas and said the worst part was going to be living so far away from Ocracoke. I was beginning to feel better already. This was going to be a great weekend after all.
The ferry ride went quickly. It is quite the sensation to ride in a convertible beneath the seagulls on the open water without the engine running and watch the sunset. I visited with my new friends awhile and began to fall in rhythm with the soothing roll of the ocean.
There is something about the ocean that calls a man’s soul, I believe, or a woman’s. It has a calming effect on even the most harried of people. Time slows anyplace you can hear the waves splashing against the shore. To those who slow down enough to see it and those who open their hearts to feel it, the ocean tells us that all is right with the world. The rhythm of all that exists is in harmony as it should be. Even though sometimes we are not.
Friday night was uneventful. I checked in, took a shower and a catnap, then headed out to find food. All I had eaten all day was the sandwich and grapefruit back in Beaufort. At ten o’clock, food did not appear to be a possibility. The price locals pay I guess to have that tranquil reassurance that all is right with the world. “Yeah, tell that to my poor tummy! I’m hungry!” I whined.
I walked up and down the main street to the ferry landing then to Howard’s then to the ferry again. People were riding bikes or walking, talking, laughing, sharing the spirit of easiness that seemed to fill this little community. There was an intense electrical storm filling the night sky. It was fascinating to watch. I was quite content wandering the dark street, watching the people out and about, wondering what I had come to this place to find. A shooting star blazed clear across the night sky, slowly as if it had no real destination. Even the shooting stars weren’t in a hurry over Ocracoke it seemed. I laid in the hammock at the Bouyette House where I was staying and watched the storm move in until midnight when exhaustion called me to bed.
The alarm was set for six o’clock. Despite the two previous days with less than two hours sleep, I was able to crawl out of bed with only two hits on the snooze button. The ocean was calling. I threw on my running clothes and shoes and set out for a good morning run and a little daylight exploration. I ran north out of town and turned to the right by the airport. As I crested the sand dunes, I saw the sun rising to the east over the most beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life. The waves weren’t lapping at the shore, they were crashing, rolling in from the ocean, with power and purpose.
The beach stretched as far as I could see in both directions. There was not one single solitary person. Now that is my idea of a beach! I had not seen shells so plentiful since I went to Cozumel twenty years ago, before the tourists took it over. I had never seen a beach that gloriously desolate. The attraction to beaches swarming with people has never made sense to me. In my mind, the ocean is a place of peace and solitude, a place to ponder, to reflect, to move slowly in time with the rhythm of the earth and the tides and the moon. This was my quintessential beach. “How wonderful it must be to live here – to have this amazing place as your own backyard,” I mused.
I’m sure it is the same in Ocracoke as every place else. We forget to appreciate the wonders that have become everyday experiences. Humans seem to have a sad predisposition towards always seeking what they don’t have rather than appreciating what they do. How sad it would be to live here and no longer recognize the beauty this place holds. How lucky for those who recognize that they indeed choose whether to come here or stay here, for they will see the beauty far longer than those who believe they are trapped. We are only trapped when our own thoughts create the bars to the cages that imprison us.
Richard Bach once wrote that he liked to play a game. He would close his eyes and pretend he was a sorcerer who could create any life he wanted; where he wanted to live, who he wanted by his side, what he wanted to do. Then he would open his eyes and behold, there it was, the life he had chosen, right before him. Those were powerful words for me when I read them. I try to keep them in my mind when I go to sleep and remind myself of them when I wake up. I choose this life. Every day of it. Just as the ‘Waterman’ does. Just as we all do. It saddens me how few people see that ultimately the path they have walked in their life is the path they have chosen to walk. It is a difficult thing to face the fact that each one of us is responsible for our own lives, for our own happiness, but it is one of life’s most liberating truths.
“I could live here,” I thought to myself as I walked along the shore, waves splashing over my feet. “Perhaps. Remember though that dreaming and doing are two different things. Dreams are easy for we focus on that which is desired and not on the price that must be paid for it. Wait for that ferry a dozen more times and see if this beach has quite the same restorative power,” I quipped.
What I intended to be a forty-five minute run stretched into a two and a half hour excursion. I finally returned to my room exhilarated from the morning air and filled with anticipation for the day’s events and the secrets I expected my heart would share with me as I sat, pen and paper in hand, on that beautiful beach. I hadn’t really intended to stay in Ocracoke. I figured I would have lunch, explore a bit more, spend a couple hours on the beach, and then head to Cape Hatteras. The Fates were smiling though, for they had much better plans for me.
It is funny how the Fates work. If I hadn’t detoured past the Easter houses I would have made the three o’clock ferry. I would have already explored the town, done my souvenir shopping, and mailed my one obligatory postcard. As it turned out, I found myself in the post office on Saturday morning, my obligatory postcard written, with no stamp and no money, just a credit card. In a city I would have walked back to my car for money. I would never have asked a stranger. Ocracoke had a gentle spirit, however, not the cold distrust of a city, perhaps it was worth a try.
As I said, the Fates were smiling, for I found myself in the company of a man who’s spirit for life and determination to create and nurture the path he chose to walk in life were as inspiring to me as they were admirable. I paid him back for the stamp with lunch. He paid me back for lunch with dinner. One day became two and two became three as he shared with me the spirit of this beautiful island.
We explored trails and beaches as he taught me about the flora and fauna, the shells, the animals, the stories, and the history that created this paradise. We petted ponies and watched dolphins play, saw the sun rise and the stars in the night sky. I learned about the people of this little town, their struggles and challenges, and the issues that joined or divided them.
This side vs. that side seems to be a part of life everywhere. As they say, that is why there is chocolate and vanilla. I wish sometimes people could take just a moment to understand that vanilla lovers love their vanilla with just as much passion and for just as good a reason in their minds as the chocolate lovers love chocolate. They may not ever agree, but if they could just see that each believes the validity of their own view, the world would be a much more tolerant and happier place to live.
I could go for days back home and never see a person on the streets who I know. Here my companion was saying hi by name to every other person we passed. “Now I know people and their idiosyncrasies make it difficult sometimes to live in a small community,” I thought to myself. “I wonder, though, if they know how lucky they are to live in a true community.” Our little suburbs and neighborhoods may have names, but they aren’t communities. I’ve never lived anywhere that I knew even half the people on my street. Not for a lack of trying. People in cities just don’t look to their neighbors for their sense of community. They are too busy rushing through life. What social circles they do travel in tend to revolve around work or one of the zillion other activities they are involved in – usually not around their community and certainly not around their neighborhood.
Even kids these days don’t play with other kids in the neighborhood. The neighborhood schools of days past are the exception now, not the rule. If they have friends nearby, either their parents are too scared to let their children play without supervision, or their lives are so scheduled with activities there isn’t time for unstructured play. Sometimes the kids are just too entranced by the TV and computer games to be lured by the outside world. And we wonder why the tragedies of today are afflicting our children. How are they supposed to find their rhythm, their place in this world, when they don’t even learn to climb a tree or chase a frog as a child? How are we supposed to find it when we don’t even know our neighbors?
How wonderful it must be to head to the coffee house every morning for a cup of Java and a lively debate on whatever issue is plaguing the world or the island on any given day. How wonderful it must be to have time not just to care, or to be informed, but to linger over the issue in discussion with others. How wonderful to be able to do it day in and day out until it becomes a tradition, a part of one’s life.
Traditions are vitally important to the human race, to its happiness, its identity. They mark the passage of time while reminding us of our connection to the past. They give power to our purpose, and reason to our joining. Sadly mankind, especially in America and through our influence now elsewhere as well, is slowly eroding them away, one by one. In Ocracoke tradition still runs strong, whether it is the coffee house every morning or Molasses Creek playing on Saturday nights. There is a sense of continuity; a changing of the guard with the passage of time as seasons roll into years and years roll into decades. It is like the call of the ocean, the rhythm of the waves.
There is a peace, a simplicity, a purpose here in Ocracoke that eludes the modern day world. In the short time I spent on this island it imbued my spirit. I felt at peace inside; my mind was calm, my heart open and eager for life. I can’t describe what about Ocracoke creates this. There are no adjectives powerful enough to bring to one’s mind’s eye the beauty of this place. You have to feel it. It is in the air as the seagulls and pelicans let out their cries; in the streets as the neighbors chat and wave – knowing each other’s troubles, their joys, even their children’s names; it is in the hands of the fishermen and the clam diggers, wrinkled from years of working the water; it is in the spirit of the people who tend to the needs of the one million tourists that bombard this village every year; it is in the coffee shop where people debate the issues of life, where they rib one another, laugh and argue while they drink their coffee and watch the dogs play in their own little social gathering outdoors.
There is a timelessness here. It must be felt, experienced, lived, loved. I hope the locals know it, feel it. I know the man I was fortunate enough to spend time with does. I hope they know and understand how special this place is; that they feel in their hearts day in and day out the very thing that calls the hearts of the those of us who leave our homes to come to theirs, to breathe their air and live in the beauty of their world just for a few days.
As I drove to the ferry my last day, I glanced at my speedometer. I was driving eighteen miles per hour. Not because a sign told me to, not because there was some idiot in the road ahead of me. There was just no reason and, more telling, no desire to go any faster. “Aren’t you the same person who four days ago was appalled by a 20 mph speed limit?” I asked myself. That was the effect that Ocracoke had on me. Life has a greater purpose than just getting where you are going. It is about being where you are. The journey, not the destination, that is its purpose.
My heart is full as I drive down desolate Highway 12, the ‘Cedar Island Ferry’ song blasting on the stereo. Four days ago I didn’t have a clue what this song was about, nor what my heart was searching for. Now I was laughing out loud as I heard Katie’s pleas to go potty from the stereo, wind blowing through my hair, my skin brown from the sun, my eyes shining with happiness, my heart singing its own song - its words clear and strong in the wind. Words I could not only hear, but understand. When my heart calls me to Ocracoke again, I will not hesitate. For here the true meaning of life unfolds. Here you can hear your own heart, beating in harmony with the rhythm of the world. All is as it should be.
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