Shades of Blue

 My favorite color is blue.

     Blue Ridge Mountain blue.

            Afternoon sky blue.

            Caribbean water blue.

            Hydrangea blue.

            Periwinkle and Salvia blue.

            Verdigris copper blue.

            Carbon and hydrogen fire blue.

These aren’t Sherwin-Williams colors either. These are things I just thought of when I was thinking of blue. There is a myriad of blue in nature and I love every shade of blue, turquoise, teal, mint, blue/green, etc. Blue is supposedly a calming color so it would make sense that I would love a calming color because I need to be calm. It is in my soul. I cannot live an adrenaline-driven life. Now let me digress to a new topic.

We went to Ocracoke, The Doer and I, over New Year’s to get some peace and quiet and to close the house for winter. We were there for 3 nights and were blessed with some beautiful weather, especially New Year’s Eve day. The sun was warm, the skies were blue, and people were donning t-shirts and shorts! Can you imagine? Shorts on the last day of December! (We cling to whatever blessings we can get during a pandemic, don’t we?) The island was busy with visitors. 

The Doer drove us out to the beach on the south end of the island where ocean meets sound meets sky. We walked barefoot on the beach and hunted for shells. The December sunlight is different from other months of sunlight. Perhaps because the sun is lower in the sky or the sun is farther from our part of the earth? The blues of shells on the white beach caught our attention like an epiphany of sorts! In fact, I cannot think of a proper simile to describe the effect that blue on sand had on us except for its own reality. Shells with textured stripes of light blue, to navy blue, to gray; fragments of whelk and blue scallops and oysters that seemed to trap the blue rays of sunshine in their shells. We collected the fragments, brought them home to mountain light and they turned a dull gray earthy color. Still beautiful in its own way but...not the same.

Now lunch time and only a few restaurants were still open: Ocracoke Oyster Company, Zillie’s, Jason’s. 1718 Brew Pub would have been open had an employee not tested positive for Covid. It was very disappointing to us because it’s one of our favorites and we had planned to spend New Year’s Eve there. Instead we went to lunch at Ocracoke Oyster’s new location on Highway 12; new location because the old location had to be torn down after Dorian’s hideous destruction. I feasted out on the patio in the sunshine on a delicious platter of oysters: 4 Crabby Oysters, 4 Oysters Rockefeller, and 4 Oysters Mon Louis. Shall I describe them? Why not? 4 oysters topped with cream of crab and fresh parmesan; 4 oysters topped with cream of spinach, bacon, and parmesan; and 4 oysters topped with brie and roasted garlic. Now I’m really not an oyster eater but I love anything slathered with cheese. AND I’m trying really hard to like oysters because they are a staple on the coast!

Then we found ourselves early New Year’s Eve on Zillie’s porch for a glass of wine and more cheese and crackers for our dinner. Went home and watched TV after that and didn’t even make it to see the ball drop! Too relaxed and too tired (maybe too much cheese!) Ahhh, the calming affect of blue skies and blue shells! So New Year’s Eve turned out to be delightfully better than anything we could have planned. Life is like that, isn’t it?

So what have any of us learned this past year from hurricane catastrophe to world-wide pandemic to riotous violence and destruction of public and private property? From disunity, hatred, and fear? If you have followed this blog from its beginning you have noticed the evolution of the writing from a bit of a shallow decorating blog to something spiritual (unintended) with a life of its own because of a life long faith in God, our Creator. I have no answers to anything! But I have learned...for me:

    there is no hope in human beings (because of our sin and frailty),

    there is no hope in government,

    there is no hope in philosophy or human beliefs,

    there is no hope in group identity,

    there is no truth apart from God’s word. 

Those with humanistic, agnostic, or atheistic views would harshly disagree with the above. But that’s ok.

I have also learned:

    there is only hope in Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords;

    that He is the One ultimately in control of the earth and is wooing us to Him in our  anger, disappointment, and fear;  

   that in the midst of heartache, there is still hope;

    that there is joy and hope in the simplest gifts of life: the inimitable rising and setting of the sun each day and the moon and stars each night, t-shirts in December, walking barefoot on the beach, oysters and wine on a porch, and shades of blue.....

    

The moon over Hatteras Island as we left the ferry dock for Ocracoke.

              Beautiful scenery on Ocracoke.

Found this little guy staring at us as we ate oysters at the Oyster Company. I agree, 2020 was a bad year!!!

Another sign at the Oyster Company. We didn’t have to chug! We took our time!

Still can’t believe I was barefoot on New Year’s Eve!

Walking on the beach was like walking on the moon.

Here, the sand looked like berber wool carpet.

The blue shell. The camera could not do it justice. I didn’t edit the photo though. I like to keep things natural, even through a camera lens.

I also learned a couple of other hard lessons last year. But I will write about those lessons in the next blog. Stay tuned!