Crooked Isle - Expanded

 

So I just updated my "most beautiful place" post. While writing, I realized it got a little sad so I ended the post on high note. For authenticity's sake, the expanded post is here. I tend to lean into the "sparkles, sunshine, and rainbows" side of life, but I think it's important to be authentic. While writing this made me a little sad, it is my truth and I enjoyed reflecting on happy memories alongside growth, even though some parts of growth are hard. Crooked Isle is my Neverland, and this post shares a little piece of my heart.

When asked to think of the most beautiful place, my mind drifts to Crooked Isle. My first concept of beach, water, beauty. 

 

 

I practically grew up aboard the Morning Star, my parents' island packet: countless nights spent anchored by Crooked Isle. My child-mind had no concept of the privilege of my experience, open ocean, clear water, abundant sea critters. Seldom did we see discarded bottles, human waste, or even other humans. Only orange tape marking turtle nests and tracks in the sand to signal the presence of other people.

 

 

 

The strip of sand stretched in either direction, and it was all ours. Ours to run along, barefoot on grainy white grounds, swatting sandflies and slicing feet on sharp shells. Ours to pick through scratchy scrub-coated sand dunes past crabs scrabbling sideways towards their holes. Hot sand burned underfoot, sliding sideways, closing the entrances to the crabs' caves and we rushed towards the waves, crushing shells underfoot, creating new sand. 

 

 

Birds in the air, on the beach, nesting in the trees. Huge beached trunks washed smooth by turbulent waters, pushed into the clean sand to be carved into castles and tea tables by my imagination. Miles of ground to walk, collecting shells and sand dollars. Picking through the crumbs seeking the prize of a whole conch or crackless clypeastroida, bleached by the sun. Our collections grew too great to carry and we picked the best, relinquishing the rest of our bounty back to the sea.

Always we saw critters: hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs, starfish, jellyfish, sea urchins, dolphins, seagulls, sand crabs, stingrays, pelicans, even nesting eagles once in the trees. Sometimes jellies washed ashore or even bigger creatures, once a small shark. We splashed through the shallow waters of the bay side, scattering small fish and trying to squeeze the large ones, always slipping through our grasps. Next time. Always next time. We'd be back to squish through the warm sand and splash through the water. To climb the dunes and cross the flat, hot stretch to the beach side. To run into the waves and fill our fingers with shells and walk through the driftwood-laden sands that stretched endlessly into the horizon. Finite wasn't a concept I grasped until much later, far from the Isle.

 

 

 

I can measure my life in trips to Crooked Isle. Time spent among its dunes and its driftwood. Miles walked along its shell-covered shores. My time there lessened as years went by. School, friends, work, commitments crowded my schedule and blurred my thoughts of the island's bliss. In a way, I left my childhood there. Thoughts of Crooked Isle fill me with nostalgia now. Longing for times when all I knew was the beach and its breeze. When my family could crowd into the bunks of the boat, staying up late playing cards by lamplight or laying in the dark atop the uncovered cockpit, staring up at the stars. I can close my eyes and taste the salt and sand. For a moment, a cool breeze blows, and waves roll, rocking the boat ever so gently. But I blink and it slips through my fingers like the fish in the bay. I'm left with a hole in my heart that maybe even the island can't fill. 

 

Crooked Isle for me is the wholeness of my family before time, distance, and different beliefs fractured our unit. A part of my heart stays in those simpler times wandering the sandy shores, waiting to hear my parents’ call. As the sun fades, we'll climb back into the boat, light lanterns and push open screened windows. We'll cozy in to play cards and spend the night staring at stars. Time is infinite, childhood lasts forever, and we'll always be back to the island.