And it was that phrase “the quality of light” that brought me to a source of inspiration that those of you who follow Oh, the Places We See have picked up on: I LOVE morning on the beach.

Inspiration is that state in which mind and heart are connected.

Deepak Chopra

Because we’ve been going to Pawleys Island, South Carolina — same beach, different rentals — for over 40 years, mornings during our week in the summer have been a strong source of inspiration, thought, and planning for a long, long time. As an educator, I used summertime to rethink and repurpose some of what I had done as a classroom teacher, and it was that thinking that inspired me to plan for the coming year and recharge my bank of creative energy.

Early morning — even before sunrise — became my quiet time as I joined the few people who walked their dogs, looked for shells, or just pulled up beach chairs for God’s morning surprise.

At times, I couldn’t tell the exact location of the sunrise. Clouds and mist covered the sky. But I found the wait to be the part of the joy, the anticipation of a new day, a new school year, and a new me, in some cases.

And it was in these early-morning moments that I planned new ways of introducing books I’d taught for years — The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath — in new ways, as I tried to relate old ideas to modern times and share how today’s issues are surprisingly similar yet different from those shared in the classics.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

Victor Hugo

Today, retired as I am now, I still love getting up before dawn, carrying my coffee and camera with me, and standing on the beach. I’m no longer waiting for the inspiration to teach, but I am still trying to figure out how life works, what my place is, and how I can contribute meaningfully to making the world a better place.

And, no surprise here, the beach is still a lovely place to be inspired!

For more entries in this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #160: Your Inspiration, check out Patti’s blog and the responses below.

And if you’re so inclined, leave me a message. I’d love to know what inspires you — naturally or otherwise!

Travel with inspiration in mind,

Rusha

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters, Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope, And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air. The world is encouraged to come away from rancor, Come the way of friendship.

At Christmas time, we’re reminded of the many friends we have not only in the U.S. but around the world. May each of you experience the holidays in your own ways, ever mindful that connections with people and beliefs in the good of this world that can make us stronger.

Wishing you happy holidays and the blessings of the season.

Rusha & Bert

Photo: The Chapel at Pawleys Island, South Carolina – Christmas 2020

Accommodations: We stayed in a hotel rather than a personal home (like listings by AirBnB, VRBO, etc.), and we were happy with our choice. For both cleanliness and convenience to the city, Courtyard Charleston Historic District fit the bill.

If you haven’t stayed in a hotel since the quarantine began, you may notice a few new things in place now. At least we did.

• Closed were both the lobby and the Bistro (no breakfast, no Starbucks).
• A reduction in staff was noticeable, but we were told that several employees are currently being rehired as business increases.
• Our room was spotlessly clean with fresh linens, minimalist decor, and uncarpeted floors.

Restaurants: Charleston eateries were open — at least partly. And several offered seating outdoors. We ate in an open courtyard by ourselves at Blossom on E. Bay Street, since we wanted to dine early in order to avoid crowds. Food — great. Service — friendly. And all employees wore masks.

Shopping: Although the historic (and, before now, ever-bustling) Charleston City Market was closed, we still found shops open (albeit recently) on King Street. Most had only a handful of customers — some, by design — as they limited the number in the store. Only Apple, it seemed, had long lines.

Many businesses set out provisions for customer safety with hand sanitizer and written precautions, but many employees were without masks.

Atmosphere: Still, we received Southern welcomes and the chit-chat that we’ve come to expect about where we are from (Knoxville), what it’s like in our town (partially open), and if we are ready to be out and about with people again (You betcha!).

Southern charm: When it was all said and done, we returned to our favorite place — The Battery — once again to stroll the boardwalk, gaze out at picture-perfect sailboats, point to our favorite homes (that we’d give anything to see inside) on East Battery, and watch the night herons tend their nests in White Point Garden.

It’s our opinion that any time is a good time to see Charleston. But early June, when crowds still haven’t returned in full force and weather is tolerable, may be the ideal moment to shop, dine, and stay in the South’s Best City of 2020.

We’d love to hear how your city is handling the re-opening. And if you’ve ventured out just yet.

We’re almost there. But not quite. It just might take a while.

Rusha & Bert

The water was glassy and calm, still candy-colored in the afterglow of sunset.

Although we drive across country each summer to enjoy the beach at Pawleys Island, South Carolina, we’ve also fallen in love with the beauty of the creek at Pawleys. Lying parallel to the ocean, the creek offers a different sight with its interesting docks, slow-moving water, and season-changing marsh grasses. Mornings find us walking the beach to catch just-born light on ocean fingerlings of water. But in the afternoon, we shift gears and head to places west where we can sit beside the marsh and watch layers of sundown unfold in the sky.

The strongest colors arrive in late afternoon just before the sun dips below the horizon — rose, purple, orange, sometimes even deep red at the base. And at that point, many vacationers are tempted to pack up and head back to their cottages by the sea. “Show’s over,” they might say.

But waiting has its reward: afterglow, to us, is the best show of all. A plain blue South Carolina sky (especially when cloudy) can take on delicate colors — pink, peach, even a bit of tangerine — for the best overhead show of all.

And yet there’s more. If you wait for the second act, the afterglow will bathe whatever is below — a dock in the marsh, boats put away until tomorrow’s adventures, a chapel by the sea — in paler, softer candy colors.

It may be, just may be, that God likes to play with color filters, too.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

Rabindranath Tagore

Thanks to Leya for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge #98: Delicate Colours, You can delight in more beautiful posts with sweet color on her site, A World in a Grain of Sand.

Do what you love, and love what you do.

Guest host Sue (Mac’s Girl) who writes The Nature of Things threw down the challenge of pastimes — what we spend our time doing outside of our work lives for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge. Since we’re at the beach for a week at Pawleys Island, South Carolina, for a little getaway (that still ensures a bit of safety during Coronavirus times) we’re sharing how we fill our days, just the two of us in a rental house on the North End of Pawleys.

Beach watching

Mornings begin early at the beach — well, most mornings — when we wake, throw on something to keep us decent and head out to watch the sunrise. Even though we’re groggy, there’s an infectious energy among morning walkers that perks us up.

And so we greet the sun, wide-eyed and waiting for more, as we take pictures and talk about the morning show.

Later in the day, you can find us under or beside a tent on the beach, celebrating the mesmerizing movement of waves up and back along the shore. (It’s just what we do when we’re not reading.)

But we also love to watch others doing what they like to do: build castles of sand, dig moats to catch the ocean, ride waves on a boogie board, surf, swim, bike, or fly kites.

Sometimes everyone on the beach watches the same event, usually in awe, before returning to life as usual doing something that requires little or no effort whatsoever.

Beach watching on cloudy days mimics what we do on sunny days unless rain threatens to shorten the time on the beach. What gets our attention? Dark clouds overhead and a rumble of thunder or two.

Then we have to weigh in on what to do. Head inside? Or stick it out under the tent to see how long the rain will last? If we think it’s just a long stretch of cloudiness, we usually tough it out. After all, cloud cover can be neat to see, and high winds are fun for bundling up and walking with the wind at our backs as long as we can.

Sometimes we think we’re on the Weather Channel imitating those crazy reporters who stay way too long out in the hurricanes! Sometimes, though, we just have to give it up for the day and head inside.

Shell seeking

This year at the beach, we were on a mission: Find a Pawleys Island shell or two. These little gems of the sea (real name: Imperial Venus Clam) populate the waters in and around Litchfield Beach and Pawleys Island, North End. But try as we have, we’ve never been able to find one along the shore, even a shore littered with shells.

So, what do you do if your pastime doesn’t yield the goods you expected? You go to an expert for advice. And John Henry Whitmire who founded Whitmire Jewelers in 1972 filled the bill. He told us the name, location, and unique habitat of the shells, and how he re-creates them in silver and gold for those who want an authentic souvenir of the island.

And so it is that we are still seeking these shells, but not as ardently as we did at the first of the week. After all, Mr. Whitmire included a real one in the box with my new silver Pawleys Island Shell. (Shell seeking pays off, you see.)

Time spending

And then there are other pastimes at the beach: Working jigsaw puzzles even when you can’t find that one last border piece . . .

and cooking shrimp (from Georgetown’s Independent Seafood) and grits from Kudzu Bakery. (Check out a great recipe from Chef Frank Lee on Discover South Carolina.)

Mostly our pastimes are these: sit, read, rest, repeat.

After all, we’re on island time!

Rusha & Bert

Be sure to check other posts on Lens-Artists Challenge #97: Pastimes.

There are moments when the elixir of life rises to such over−brimming splendor that the soul spills over.

I used to sleep in on our vacations to the beach, a luxury for a working mother of two. But that was before I discovered what really happens on beaches before dawn.

Nowadays, I need no prompting to hop up early. I throw on anything that goes with flip-flops and head out with coffee in hand, camera slung over my shoulder. And I wait as the drama begins.

First, that beautiful glow from below the horizon that washes houses and sand dunes in soft pinks and pale oranges.

Then — quick before I almost miss it — the first peek of wash-over orange lights up the sky.

And suddenly, full-on light bathes the world in crimson with a tiny, brilliant yellow focal point barely, just barely, peeking out to start the day.

But quick before I might miss the ta-dah moment, the sun’s up. Just like that. And on the move.

It’s my last chance to capture the main event as full-on light floods the camera, blinding me with the elixir of dawn at the beach.

And almost with the let-down you feel when a concert has ended, I turn the other way, check out who’s out there with me, and head back inside. Smiling, of course.

That’s the way morning plays out at Kiawah Island, South Carolina.

Rusha

But this morning, I caught a glimpse of a mother and her daughter, both seemingly happy to be a part of the great outdoors. They, too walked barefoot in the sand, pointing up at clouds, waiting to see the sun. A mother-daughter pair welcoming the day together.

A few minutes later as I sat down to look at the photos I had taken, it occurred to me that the mother might like a copy of this photo to remind her of this moment at Pawleys waiting for sunrise.

But when I looked up from my camera, they were gone. Perhaps beyond the dunes and back in their house. I don’t know. But I’ve never forgotten that missed opportunity to share something special with a person I didn’t even know and may never encounter again.

I felt sad, but I kept walking down the beach looking for whatever might turn up. And there it was: a pair of turtle tracks, the coming and going of a mother turtle laying eggs in the night and then returning to the ocean. And it occurred to me that in some small way, the two pairs could almost be related.

Mothers and children. Before dawn. On the beautiful beach at Pawleys Island.

Rusha Sams

This post is one of a series of one-word prompts for April 2020 called Discover Prompts by WordPress. Enjoy!

Sweet Southern home in McClellanville, SC complete with front porch, quiet grounds, and trees festooned with Spanish moss.

Visiting McClellanville is a trip back in time: Lovely homes with wide front porches sit underneath trees dripping with Spanish moss.  We generally park the car, walk the two or three blocks known as “downtown,” eat lunch, and then head home with our blood pressure lowered and our need for a small- town fix satisfied.

But not this time.  As we walked down the uneven sidewalk beneath draping trees, we suddenly — and I do mean suddenly — stopped dead in our tracks with this sight.  Yes, you’re seeing this correctly:  a head.  Tall as the bottom story of the house, tucked under a porch, unpainted, and apologizing to no one.

Somethin’ creepy in McClellanville

I desperately wanted to go toward it to see what it was made of.  To see if it had a back.  To see if I could figure out what it was used for.  But going onto the grass might mean I was trespassing, and I was a little freaked out thinking what someone might do if that someone saw me patting down the forehead or looking behind the ears.

So, with my trusty iPhone, I moved as close as I thought the law would allow and snapped a picture as surreptitiously as possible.

A little bit closer, but only a little bit!

And then both of us beat a hasty retreat to the car, only to pass this house in full decay mode.

Seen better times in McClellanville.

I guess it’s true:  What’s real is sometimes pretty surreal.

Happy Halloween!  And beware:  a slow stroll through a cute town might actually creep you out.

— Bert and Rusha Sams

Pre-dawn view of Pawleys Pier from the Sea View Inn.

It’s just been in recent years that I’ve chosen to get up before dawn.  Oh, I did it before retirement, of course — to soothe a waking baby, to catch an early flight, or to set up a conference room for a morning meeting.  But now, I can choose to see dawn unfolding. And nowhere do I love it better than on the beach at Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

Quiet time before sun-up

Recently, we stayed a few days at the Sea View Inn, one of the few remaining Old South bed and breakfasts that serve three low-country meals each day.  So getting up meant having time for myself in my place in the world without even having to make coffee. It was there, each and every morning, hot and ready for the taking, even before dawn.

Bathed in early morning light, the Sea View Inn on Pawleys Island.

Before the guests awake: Sea View Inn

I left the porch and moved slowly down the beach, passing houses whose windows were lit with morning glow.

Greeting the sun at Pawleys Island.

With salmon tones in the background from the almost-up sun, Pawleys Pier jutted out to greet the seas and make ready for sunny days.

Pink light before dawn at Pawleys Pier

Colors changed from smoky pink to peach and orange with a hint of yellow, but just a hint . . .

Orange skies replace pink as the sun’s stonger colors come into play.

until the sun peeked over the horizon, bathing all in early-morning glow.

At Pawleys, I never take dawn for granted.  Never ask for clear skies or cloudy ones with interesting configurations.  Come what may, it’s my place — albeit a temporary one —  just as it is.

To see places loved by other writers, check out WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Place in the World.

Lowcountry house and live oak tree in Bluffton, SC.

On the coast of South Carolina and throughout the Deep South, Lowcountry houses and live oak trees make good matches.  And sometimes you don’t see one without the other.

Live oaks (so called because they are the only variety to keep their leaves all year long) extend their arms to frame the property and add a touch of Southern grace to the landscape.  And then, as if that weren’t enough, live oak branches drip with Spanish moss that gently floats with the breeze.

Ah . . . Lowcountry home and a live oak tree:  a good match.

For more good matches, check out the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: A Good Match.