Disoriented from the OBX Dream, Suitcase? What suitcase?

            For the first time since I arrived home well after 11pm on a Sunday night, carrying the last remnants of my college life into a room already filled to the brim with my things, I spent a full week away from it all. I’ve taken mini-vacations, or that’s what I’d like to call them, to the mountains to visit Bear while he was still in school. I’ve spent the night with the Frog Queen, as we made tea and baked goods and ogled the guys we want to write fan-fiction about. It’s not like I’ve stayed in my room for the past nine months. I’ve gotten out. I’ve had fun. But nothing beats a full week somewhere different. Nothing beats the salty air in your face for the first time in two years. Nothing beats reading on the beach in weather that is not unbearably hot, but just right. And now I’m home again. It’s over until the next time.

            I reached a certain age in my life where I feel it when the seasons begin to change. Spring has a smell to it, a brief whiff that reaches my nose even when it’s still chilly outside. Fall, on the other hand, has more than a scent. It has a feeling. I’m talking about temperature and more than temperature. That feeling you get that makes you think of the days ahead with crunchy leaves beneath your boots and snuggling deep into your hoodie with a bonfire roaring in front of you. It’s truly glorious. And it’s something else to feel those first tendrils of autumn’s imminent arrival on the beaches of the Outer Banks.

            Our last few days chilled off considerably, the weather slightly unusual for mid-August in Carolina. The first hints of fall and the winter to come. I loved it, even if it did make visits to the Sound a little unorthodox. The water cooled off considerably, such that Maestro and I were careful as we eased into it. Apparently Bear is not a polar bear, he stayed on the beach, content to read.

            It does a soul good to get away, to forget all the worries and stresses of the real world. It does a soul good to exist for a while in a place where the biggest problem is how cold the air is when you finally get out of the hot tub. Home feels a little strange after a week of that, more so than it did when I came home from months away at school. I suppose you could say it’s because for a whole week, I existed in not only in a different place, but in a completely different frame of mind. It’s almost like waking up from a dream, disoriented and unsure of where you are. With a suitcase still in the floor, only half unpacked, and the excitement of fall’s arrival in your blood.

            Peace and love to my readers. Have a great Sunday!