Posted in Savannah Joy

Sunday Evening Joy

One of the great rewards about living where we do in Historic District Savannah is that I can walk two blocks over toward the Savannah River, find a bench, read, and experience the Joy of Nature.

An hour ago

That’s the Savannah River behind me. Looking so peaceful now. But don’t be fooled. It is one of the busiest ports in the nation. And all of the ships travel right behind me.

But not at this moment.

Peace.

Posted in Savannah Joy

Ty-bee or not Ty-bee?

HR and I drove over to Tybee Island, aka Savannah Beach, (twenty minutes away) for a morning beach walk, actually our first one in 2023.

Robert parked the car near the pier, while looking all cool and beach hip.

(I stood in the shade and daydreamed while he did that parking app thingy, which I don’t quite understand.)

After parking my sandals in the sand, we walked toward the Atlantic.

(FYI: HR does not like to go barefoot on the beach. He doesn’t like to feel those bad little tiny broken shells on his feet.)

(FYI 2: Sometimes you just have to put up with all the quirks in a relationship.)

That’s a cargo ship in the upper left-hand corner, heading toward Savannah’s massive downtown port.

Here’s Robert and a bird.

And here’s a short documentary titled Cold Feet, produced and directed by HR, starring me.

Terrific morning!

Posted in Savannah Joy

Happy Birthday to My Town!

TODAY SAVANNAH, GEORGIA TURNED 290 YEARS OLD!

“Referred to as “The Hostess City of the South,” Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia and has a long and colorful history that attracts millions of visitors each year. From cobblestone streets and public parks to some of the most unique Antebellum architecture of the South, Savannah is an old beauty that has aged with grace.” trolleytours.com


“Established in 1733 when General James Oglethorpe and 120 fellow passengers on the ship Anne landed on a bluff along the Savannah River, Oglethorpe named the 13th and final American colony Georgia after England’s King George II. Savannah became the first city of this new land.”

“Upon Oglethorpe’s foresight, the city of Savannah was laid out in a series of grids allowing for wide streets and public squares. Considered America’s first planned city, Savannah had 24 original squares with 22 still in existence today.”

Robert I live a few blocks from the bluff and just off Washington Square, the northeast-most of Savannah’s squares.

At a cheese round cutting in Washington Square several years ago.
Posted in Nature, Savannah Joy

Resurrection!

HR and I drove to our favorite Savannah library this morn to return a book we had just finished. [Boys Come First, our 161st (!) book we have read together.]

Walking out of the Bull Street Library, I saw this incredible old Live Oak …

It rained yesterday, so the resurrection fern was in proud display.

Walk closer with me.

If it doesn’t rain anymore, in a couple of days, the resurrection fern will dry up, be dark brown, and look dead.

Until the next rain.

Posted in Savannah Joy

Kitty in the Square

Historic District Savannah has 22 beautiful extant squares. Plus two more that were partially destroyed by “progress.“

On an evening walk near us today, I came across this kitty resting in Warren Square.

“Hello there,” I said, trying to project friendliness.

“Hmmm,” he sighed.

Posted in Joy in Nature, Savannah Joy

Throwback Thursday: “Welcome to My Backyard, the Alley of the Angels” 2012

Welcome to the alley of the angels

Hey, they say your eyes can gleam

When you can a just tell the truth all night

(And you can chase them dreams all night)

Welcome to the alley of the angels.

 — John Cougar Mellencamp

Places–I love the poetic resonance of that word. Some places are special; you had them growing up, of course you did. And do now. Magical places. Special because of their cocoonishness, or their broad openness. Their smell, or their connection to friends or family. Their lightness, or darkness. Their safety, or risk.

So I was aghast a few years back when I attended a writing conference at the Sea Turtle Inn in Atlantic Beach, FL, and one afternoon decided to skip the meetings and drive down memory lane. I headed south to Jacksonville Beach to find the motel where my family and I vacationed from about the time I was six or seven till I went away to college. It had those wonderful beds where you inserted a quarter into the headboard, and the mattress vibrated! For fifteen minutes! My mother, father and brothers would all hop on. Who needed the Ritz?

I knew exactly where the Horseshoe Motel stood. I had been there SO many times as a kid. But I started to doubt myself when I passed the lifeguard station and came to the ridiculously sharp turn in the road far beyond my memory motel location. I can be dense, so it took me at least three to-and-fro trips before I realized (admitted?) that the place had been demolished for a condo. Sad. A childhood memory also demolished.

I live in beautiful downtown Savannah, smack-dab in the middle of the nation’s largest historic district, to be exact. I can hear the huge freighters blowing their bass notes at night …

freighter2

… as well as the clatter of horseshoes as carriages tour past Colonial Park Cemetery across the street.

Horse1

I love walking the Savannah streets, breathing history.

I don’t really have a backyard, in the traditional sense of the word. But, boy, do I have a backyard! It’s really a small alley, which runs behind the building where I live.

Even though it is communal, and somewhat small, there are hidden crannies where one can sit and read, or laptop, or daydream. It exudes a trace of otherwordliness, a fragrance of excursion. I step into my “backyard,” and suddenly I’m in Europe–Florence, Italy perhaps, trying to decide on which trattoria to frequent. I sit to read in its botanical wealth and am lost, not just in the book’s maze, but in the place, the green, the leafyness, the nowness of nature.

This place calls me to look up, to pause and see.

To view from unfamiliar perspectives and angles.

A tremendous perk of having place appreciation is that windows appear, and open (or shut), and allow you to see just what you desire to see. Or simply, and deliciously, to dream.

There’s power in place.

Both growth and potential growth. Both static and kinetic.

Sometimes sitting is all that’s needed in life. To embrace “is-ness,” accept “am-ness.” Breathing in, breathing out.

A sense and celebration of place, our place, they gift us with calm assurance that we are where we are, for good reason. That rhythm and movement take us (or keep us) where we need to be.

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My backyard invites me to …