I was only at the beach for three days. It was supposed to be an annual fishing trip with men from my dad’s church, but I haven’t done any fishing on this trip in years. I’m not much of a surf fisherman (or much of a patient fisherman for that matter). Instead, I look forward to this trip as an opportunity to read and enjoy local food. This year was no exception. I read my books and found some excellent food in the Emerald Isle, NC area. If you’re down there, try the seafood bisque @ Flipperz and chowder @ Chowdaheads on Emerald Isle and crab cakes @ Crabby Patty’s in Havelock.
Something seemed a bit different on this trip. I felt a bit more reflective about life. Maybe it had to do with some personal things, maybe it was the particular selection of books I took with me. I finished up Tuesdays with Morrie. I can’t say that it changed me profoundly as some reviewers have claimed, but maybe the ideas raised in the book of facing death and living a more considerate life put me in a reflective mood. I also made it halfway through Jimmy Buffett’s A Pirate Looks at Fifty envying him for having the means and leisure to go island hopping in a sea plane. I also started on Blue Horizons: Dispatches from Distant Seas in which Beth Leonard recounts her experiences circumnavigating the globe for a second time. As if those three books weren’t enough for a three day vacation, I also managed to slip in a couple of chapters from Chapman’s Piloting & Seamanship and The Simple Living Guide. What I’m left with is a desire for a life less ordinary (if life can be less ordinary than what mine already is). Wondering what it would be like to pull up roots, shed ties to the land and set sail for bluer waters and lower latitudes.
I’d like a less ordinary life sometime and have similar thoughts about pulling up roots and going somewhere else.