June 06, 2006
On the Island
Yesterday I returned home after six nights on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. It was a work trip, but it's a trip that is always fun and we bookend it with time to relax and do as we please. This year new friendships were made, old ones were strengthened and secrets were revealed.
Our meeting planner booked Mary, Sarah and me into three connecting rooms and we joked that it was like having our own condo. We were at the end of a hallway, in oceanfront rooms, and it felt very much like the view of the Atlantic was ours alone. One night I sat out on the balcony and the roaring waves were so loud, they drowned out my thoughts.
We had long days and sometimes longer nights, and there will be stories circulating from this meeting for years to come. It was legendary, and though I miss the beach already, I'm glad to be home and back to my regular life. (The one that sadly lacks a Heavenly Bed or someone to pick up my towels, but one that does include a static schedule and Montego.)
On Sunday, our final night, the three of us walked down to the beach so that we could say goodbye to the ocean. "How do you say goodbye to the ocean?" Mary asked. And when she did, I realized that was something I got from my mother, who, on every vacation would say "Goodbye ocean!" or "Goodbye lake" or goodbye to whatever it was we were leaving behind for another year. I always say goodbye to the ocean - the great beast that roars and ebbs and reminds me in its vastness how small and yet how loved I am. I hear it in my dreams.
Posted by hannah at 04:08 PM
This is great. I'm going next month for the first time.
Posted by mingaling on June 7, 2006 09:07 AMIf I could get booked into one of those ocean front rooms you mentioned I would leave RIGHT NOW and I would just sit on the patio until it was time to come back. That's exactly what I need.
Posted by Al on June 8, 2006 04:19 PM
