2020 summer vacation

If ever there was a year when a vacation was needed, right? 

Our annual family vacation is normally scheduled months in advance around school and work calendars.  This year we didn’t actually make our reservations until much later than usual, but even then we were not sure what we were getting ourselves into.  Just weeks earlier the beaches were closed by the Governor's order.  One week earlier all the restaurants were closed.  Ultimately we decided that as long as we were allowed on the beach, that would be enough for us so we packed up and left town.

Sort of at the last minute, we decided to leave a day early and spend a night in Charleston.  We looked up some of our favorite restaurants and saw that they were open and we decided we’d start in Charleston and work our way up the coast.  When we arrived at one of our favorite BBQ places, we were surprised to find that “open” actually just meant ordering from a limited menu and drive-through only.  This barely slowed us down and we enjoyed our food in the parking lot while trying to keep the sauce off our shirts. 

We drove down King Street and saw that the few stores open for customers had long lines out the doors.  Knowing this was not for us, we drove on down to the waterfront and parked for a leisurely stroll.  The benefit of having no plans is that you can happen upon things and just relax.  It was nesting time for herons and all along the live oaks in White Point Gardens were large nests with feisty heron moms standing guard.  We made a quick trip to the beach on Sullivans Island and had a nice, spacious dinner at Page’s Okra Grill. 

Sullivan's Island.

The next morning I drove to the bridge for my morning run.  It had been a while since I ran the bridge and it was very nice.  We found some breakfast and some coffee and decided to culture the kids by taking them to the Angel Oak on Johns Island.  I’ll just say it’s hard to impress a 13 year old.  After that adventure there may have been a second coffee and we decided to start making our way toward the Grand Strand.  Not long after we took Hwy 17 to the bridge, protestors assembled and blocked traffic.  We unknowingly dodged that situation but slowly became aware that civil unrest was spreading across the country.

The angel oak.

We arrived at our place for the week and had to do some adjusting.  The place we’ve stayed for the last several years was rented out just a day or two before we made our reservations.  We found a place farther south and thought it might be nice to be around even fewer people on the beach each day.  The location was perfect but the room was a tad smelly.  I think the scientific term for this particular smell would be “funk”.  It was a mix of “someone has been smoking in here”, “there’s rotten fish in here”, and “it smells like someone’s butt in here”.  The rental agency sent someone to spray and we decided to deal with it.  Violet and I made a grocery run and our vacation was officially under way. 

Fabulous Mr. Fox

One of the highlights of the week made it’s introduction fast.  Our balcony overlooked the dunes and the sea and one of my favorite things about a beach vacation is sitting on the balcony.  G and the kids caught a glimpse of something in the dunes and it turned out to be a fox.  There was a little fox family living nearby and all week they made surprise appearances.  After catching a glimpse of a fox from the balcony, we walked up on him at dusk when we went out to walk in the sand.  He skirted around us and down the beach before hopping back over into the dunes.  Later we saw the spouse but I wasn’t lucky enough to see the children.

The Rose

We saw Rose!  After meeting Rose last year during this same week we’ve kept in touch and visited her a couple of times.  This week she met us for pizza and we got to go over and see her garden and her new beach treasures.  We also got to hang out with her dogs a bit.  Sadly we did not see Yun this year.  I hope she’s well. 

I decided to make sand sculptures each day.  The different location gave me a different type of audience and I had some lovely interactions with people while sculpting.  There was a tiny boy with blonde curly hair who came over to me several times and shouted “GREAT JOB!” and then walked away.  Once he even gave me a thumbs up.  After the first sculpture many of the adults started coming over to ask what I was making and trying to figure out what compelled me to do this.  One afternoon as I was washing the sand off my feet with the kids, an older lady motioned to me and said “Hey look! It’s the professor from Lander!”.  Apparently she knew someone who had talked to me that morning.  But Carlee was one of my favorite supporters.  (I’m choosing to spell her name this way in honor of the Carlee I taught at Winthrop ages ago, although Blue assures me I’m spelling it wrong.)  Carlee smiled at me one day.  The next day she walked over and told me I was “amazing” and asked what I was going to make next.  I honestly didn’t have any ideas yet so she offered hers, “You should make a pelican and an ice cream”.  I love pelicans and I love ice cream so there was my inspiration. 

A pelican ice cream cone.

When Carlee came out with her sisters and grandmother the next day she was overjoyed that I had taken her suggestion the day before.  She and her sisters all sat down in the sand next to me and asked me to teach them how to make sand sculptures.  I gave them a quick lesson as I was starting my own larger version.  I had a vague idea of sculpting a cartoonish man holding a heart (as love and unity was my personal theme for the week).  As the man’s head and the heart were starting to emerge from the sand, Carlee thought it would be better if I sculpted a mermaid and a heart.  I’ve never tried to sculpt a mermaid but how could I say no to my biggest fan? 

Sort of a mermaid with the note for my friend.

Carlee and her family had to leave well before I finished the sculpture so I wrote “for Carlee” on the back of the sculpture before heading inside for the day.  When we came back out that evening for a walk she had left a response.  She wrote “thank you!” in the sand.

Carlee's response.

The different location for our stay brought some fun daily adventures.  We were 1.5 miles from the point, the actual inlet at Murrell’s Inlet which was perfect for my 3.1 mile morning runs.  The first couple of mornings the timing of the tide was just right for me to run on dry sand all the way down and back.  That third morning, though, things started to get more adventurous.  There are several jetties in that 1.5 miles and the walk-through for two of them was covered by the higher tide from the third morning on.  This meant climbing up over a wall a couple of times.  One morning I had to scale a 6 foot tall concrete sea wall to keep my shoes dry.  I only bled a little. 

Sunrise view at the point.

But the views at the point were so worth it.  The waves thundered over the rock jetty at the inlet on the ocean side and the marsh side offered it’s own beauty and treasures.  I found lots of cool shells, saw hordes of horseshoe crabs doing what I can only assume was mating, and even saw a lady doing yoga headstands around there.  Every day was a new adventure.  It was sort of magical. 

The magical marsh view.

Violet wanted to walk down to the point a few times during the week.  Blue ran down there with me the day we got to run with Rose.  That was also pretty cool.  Rose used to be a regular runner, running up to 7 miles a day.  For various reasons she had to stop and she had not run at all in 18 years.  She kept saying she wanted to run with us, so we told her to come on out.  Blue and I dropped what we were doing and took off running with Rose all the way to the point.  We alternated walking and running but she still did 3 miles and boy was she happy about it.  It was great.

Another fun thing happened when we decided to try a new restaurant G passed earlier in the day.  It was a burger and hot dog joint and we saw we could eat inside so we stopped.  The parking lot was packed.  When we got near the door we figured out why.  It was karaoke night and the place was packed with older folks doing really bad karaoke.  Really bad.  I mean, take whatever bad karaoke you’ve heard and multiply by at least 5.  It was bad.  So bad that we laughed a lot while we ordered and waited for our food.  Violet and I had kept up our quarantunes/summertunes song every day during vacation and perhaps she was emboldened by the lack of singing ability in the room, but she said she might want to try karaoke.  It seemed like a good opportunity so we all encouraged her.  Within a few minutes she was holding a microphone and blowing the place away with a Taylor Swift song.  People stopped talking and listened.  Waitresses kept walking by me while I videoed it telling me how great Violet was doing.  It was pretty awesome.

Violet with the $5 a stranger gave her for singing.

I also got to run a virtual 5K race at Brookgreen Gardens.  Because of cancelations this year, I didn’t get to go to Brookgreen for my annual visit with students on the Sand Sculpture trip.  However, the cancelations also turned the Memorial Day 5K into a virtual race stretched out over a couple of weeks which allowed me to participate during my vacation.  I got free entry to the gardens and was able to create my own 5K course through the beautiful plants and sculptures.  Brookgreen is one of the most beautiful and magical places I’ve ever been and I loved every step of the run.  

Brookgreen.

I stopped several time to take photos of my favorite sculptural friends and after the run I was drenched in sweat so I decided to walk through more of the proper gardens while I cooled down.  I rarely run with a shirt when the temperature is over 50 degrees Fahrenheit so I was shirtless and I was leaving a puddle everywhere I stood still.  I felt a little weird shedding my shirt when I got out of the car to start running but during the normal race, this is expected.  As I walked through the gardens cooling down I spoke to at least 7 different garden employees about the location of artwork.  Every single one was kind, respectful, and helpful.  A couple even stopped their work to help me find what I was looking for. One nice lady commented that I must be so hot running in this humidity and sun.  After I stopped sweating enough to not ruin the upholstery in the car on the way back to the room, I headed to the car.  As I neared the car at the very end of the parking lot, a man on a golf cart swerved off the road toward me and in his most unkind voice he let me know that the garden had a dress code and that I was going to need to put on a shirt or leave.  I thanked him for the information and let him know that I had just finished the virtual 5K run and that I was, in fact, about to get in my car and leave.  I would have appreciated a slightly different tone but I don’t fault the guy for doing his job.  We can’t have shirtless people looking at nude statues!  I guess I should have kept my shirt on. 

 Shirtless sculpture not asked to leave.  Also, "The Thinker" by Henry Clews, my favorite sculpture in Brookgreen.

Some other notable things about the week:

We were across the street from a marina with perfect sunset views every evening. 

Blue channeled his inner Karen.

 We had lots of family time.

Lots of family time.

Blue had his first experience with pot.  (Obviously not marijuana, just a decorative plant at Broadway at the Beach)

We saw a big shark almost eat a dude.

And Grilled Cheese and Crabcake Company!

The 6 Month Check-up

So, that 2020 huh?  I guess no one really saw that coming.  I certainly could not have guessed in January that my spring and early summer would look like this.  It’s funny now to recall sitting in a coffee shop on a cold January morning in Greenville typing out the draft that would become my first blog post of the year.  In it, I listed 7 goals for myself for this year and mentioned that I’d try to remember to check in a few times to let you know how it was going.  Well, it’s now mid-June.  I guess we better get to it.

I know you don’t want to scroll back through the posts any more than I did, so I’ll quickly remind you of my 7 goals for 2020:

-Exercise every day

-Practice gratitude

-Sketch/Write in my sketchbook every day

-Eat better

-Get in exhibits

-Read every day

-Choose positivity

I’ve heard that a man’s (or woman’s) character is not tested when things are easy, but rather when they become difficult.  I consider these goals reasonable but I think they would have been challenging in a year when things went smoothly.  And it’s true that even in the early weeks of working towards meeting these goals, I encountered some difficulty.  Maybe that’s a good way to address this check-up, by breaking it down into “before trouble” and “during trouble”. 

Before Trouble

Let’s call January to the first week in March “before trouble”.  I seem to recall the threat of what the social media birds were calling “World War III” during those weeks, but otherwise there was mostly just the normal amount of politics and civil unrest.  My life was moving along with the start of a spring semester and I was working hard at work and at being an artist.  I was actually finding a groove creatively and I was managing to carve out a sizeable chunk of time each week to produce new drawings.  School was also going well.  I was handling the things within my control as well as possible and my students were thriving.  Life was good. 

I was managing to exercise (PIYO) about 4 times per week which was not exactly what I was hoping for in the beginning, but with the school schedule, it was what I could manage.  I was running every day and I was even steadily increasing my distance running in preparation for running a half marathon in March.  Each week I added a mile to my run right up until the half marathon, which I was lucky to complete just before everything started to be canceled.  The gratitude book was in daily use and I was jotting down my thankful thoughts every morning.  I don’t think I missed any days during this “before trouble” period.  I wasn’t doing as great with the sketching/writing in my sketchbook every day.  I would miss a day here and there, but the routine was being established.  I was eating better by watching the amount of sweets I was eating and working to consciously eat less fried foods and more vegetables.  I was also working toward entering some exhibits.  There was a small batch of "calls for art" during the latter part of this time and I was making work to enter.  I was reading every day, either in the Bible, a bedside book, or online and doing very well with that.  And I was choosing positivity with a good deal of success.  I know this because I saw some changes in my immediate world with student interactions and my own emotions were much more positive as a result.  I was letting go of things I couldn’t control and trying to be at peace with them.  I was smiling, encouraging, and swatting high fives anywhere they were available.  I was doing a pretty good job with my goals.

During Trouble

And then there was March.  I think it was somewhere around March 13 that we got booted from campus and we had to completely rethink how we were teaching our semester courses.  You can find my own detailed weekly responses in the series of “Quarantine Logs” by scrolling on down.  If you read any of those, you know that I stayed very busy during this transition and during the final weeks of the semester with working online and helping my kids finish their school year as well. 

The exercise was also working out well.  I was setting an alarm and getting up early most days to run and do PIYO before signing on with students.  The PIYO workouts were up to about 5 per week.  The running distances were mercifully back down to just 3.1 miles each day and my legs were tired following the longer runs of training. 

During these weeks of change, gratitude came pretty easily to me.  I was thankful to have a job that allowed me to work online.  I was thankful for my students’ abilities to learn online.  I was thankful to come up with solutions to very difficult studio teaching problems.  I was, of course, thankful for the good health of everyone I knew.  Thankful for toilet paper and whatever else the stores seemed to stay out of stock on for a while.  I had time each day to write these things down.  I’m even grateful for that time of gratefulness.

The difficult times were good times for sketchbook content.  There was a lot to write and to sketch about.  It was not as easy to find the time for it, though.  Many late nights were spent throwing some thoughts down about the history of the day before dragging myself to bed.  My school sleep schedule was tossed out the window completely.  Instead of trying to be in bed by 11pm, I was lucky to see my pillow before 1am.  Some nights it was these extra hours of wakefulness that allowed me to work in my sketchbook.  But some nights I just couldn’t bring myself to open that little book.  I’d think about it and turn off the light in exhaustion.  I missed some days in the sketchbook.

If you follow me on Instagram you can just skip this paragraph about eating better.  My eating habits “during trouble” probably couldn’t have been worse.  I still got a vegetable in fairly regularly, but the amount of sweets I was putting in my body each week could probably be best measured in tons.  I may have stress-ate.  Stress-eaten?  Either way, I ate way too many sweets.  We stocked up on sweets as the pandemic loomed and as soon as the self-quarantine began, we had to go out and buy more because we were out.  I did several “cooking with McAbee” things on Instagram with insanely decadent food creations.  I ate a lot of waffles.  I drank a lot of coffee.  I don’t normally weigh myself but I’m sure I added some pounds during this time.  I’m ok with calling this one a failing grade.

Getting in exhibits is much easier when there are exhibits to get into.  Write that down.  As I prepared to enter the stack of calls for art on my desk I found that almost all of them had been canceled or rescheduled because of the pandemic.  I was in a very cool exhibit at The Bascom, which, if I haven’t blogged about that, I need to do that soon.  But I wasn’t even allowed to go pick up the work for that show because the town had been closed to non-residents.  The one show I entered before it was canceled just recently canceled their rescheduled date and refunded the entry fees.  I did have a gallery call me to discuss the possibility of doing some sort of exhibit of the goofy stuff I did online during the quarantine, but that hasn’t been scheduled yet.  Looks like I don’t pass this one either.  But I do have a lot of new work ready so if you know a gallery looking for a show…

Some of my friends have zipped through books during the last few months.  I apparently spent most of my extra time on drawings or other creative activities and missed my reading times.  I am proud to say that I’ve done a pretty good job with reading the scheduled Bible passages every day, but I have missed some days.  I’ve also done well with reading at least a page in a bedside book, but again, there have been the late nights where all I did was turn out the light and immediately begin snoring.  Most recently, I bombed all my reading on our vacation.  I took the “read through the Bible in a year” Bible with me along with a brand new book I’ve been looking forward to reading.  I completely forgot the Bible was in my bag all week and after reading Chapter 1 in the other book on the first night, I don’t think I opened that one again all week.  Vacation was intense.  I may get a passing grade for the entire time period but I’m really not proud of that week of reading.

Again, if you read any of the “Quarantine Logs” in this blog, you know that while I may not have had a problem with external positivity, I did struggle with internal positivity.  So much of what I did outwardly since early March was aimed at helping others find a reason to smile and keep going.  Inside my head it was not always so positive.  I was very frustrated with how the pandemic impacted my semester and my students.  I was frustrated with how it impacted my kids’ school year and G’s job.  I realized these were things beyond my control and I tried to minimize their impact on my positivity.  I suppose there were days when I did as well as anyone else.  There were certainly days I didn’t manage well.  I experienced random moments of crankiness and general dismay at the events around me.  However, under the circumstances, I’m not ready to say I did poor job of being positive.  I actually think I did pretty well considering the sky was falling in giant chunks all around me. 

Just as we ended our self-imposed isolation time and began our summer break, the world decided that some civil unrest is what this year needed next.  During our annual family vacation the country erupted into protests and riots.  I’m looking at the coming summer the way my dogs look at me when they see that the fun car ride ended up at the smelly building where they get stuck by needles and someone jabs a cold thermometer in their butt.  Perhaps it’s a good thing that I have my 7 goals to focus on.  If you had goals or resolutions for this year, I’d love to hear how you’re dealing these days.  If you’ve failed a few like me, a fresh start begins tomorrow. 

quarantine log week 9

This week we eased back into life outside the plantation.  A quick scroll through your social media will confirm that there are as many opinions about how to self-isolate and practice social distancing as there are social media accounts.  You and your family may not feel it’s a good idea to be preparing to end your own “quarantine” and that’s ok.  You should certainly do what you feel is best.  As I respect your right to govern yourself and your family as you see fit, please respect my right to do the same. 

The thing is most of us haven’t really been in quarantine.  As I understand the word technically, a quarantine would not include interacting with take-out restaurants, trips to Walmart, visiting family, leaving the house to exercise, or leaving the house at all really.  So, let’s just own that for a second, can we?  At best we’ve all been social distancing.  At worst we’ve all been hanging out more at home.  Maybe you have been militant about your self-isolation and if so, my hat is off to you.  But whether you’ve had no contact with the world outside your home, little contact, lots of contact, or even if you’ve pretty much ignored all suggestions on social distancing, we’ve still all experienced a very different world for the last few months.  Public places have been closed.  Restaurants have allowed no indoor dining.  Many jobs have been limited to work-from-home tasks.  Schools have been closed and kids have been home.  So even if you’ve had some of your life remain normal, you’ve still had to make some major adjustments.

Last week my kids finished their school year officially by cleaning out their lockers and picking up all their assignments and projects.  We’ve moved into the “summer time” schedule around the house, and the only major difference here now is that G is still home from work every day.  We’re still limited with some of the activities we would normally pursue, but mostly things are starting to feel like they did back in early March. 

We’ve started having family lunches at mom’s again.  More places are opening for business including some restaurant dining rooms.  We’ve tried to support our local restaurants as much as possible over the last several weeks, but we haven’t eaten inside a restaurant since early March.  We got up one day this week and decided we were going to go shopping and eat in a restaurant.  We drove to Greenville and picked up the things on our list.  We also went to Marshall’s and stood in a short line to get inside.  The occupancy rules forced us to wait a bit before going in.  The checkout line in Marshall’s is always long, but with an extra few feet expected between humans, it looped around through the store farther than I’ve ever seen it.  World Market was only open for curbside pickup.  Ross looked like its clothing was practicing social distancing with a couple of feet between each item of clothing on the men’s side.  Apparently there have been some distribution disruptions. 

When we were ready to eat, we decided on BBQ. We drove to one of our favorite BBQ places only to find it was still closed.  Our plan B was a BBQ place we’d never tried before. When we arrived, their indoor dining area was closed. Instead, we sat at an outdoor table in the sun.  It was a beautiful day. We ate beside the big BBQ slow cooker. It smelled amazing.  The food was also good, so no complaints from me.  Still, we failed to eat inside a restaurant.  Maybe next time. 

Many businesses and jobs are preparing to reopen the first week of June.  I’ve noticed some museums and galleries will resume normal hours on June 1.  I’ve heard many voices speaking out against moving back to normal operations too soon.  There’s the warning of a looming rebound of COVID 19 after we all start being normal again.  I suppose this is likely.  Still, I think I may be confused about what people are thinking about this virus.  Maybe our educational videos with the matches lighting one another and the one match moving out of line to stop the spread of the fire has fooled some of us into thinking that social distancing and washing our hands will eradicate this virus from Earth.  Now that this virus is moving among humans, we’re stuck with it.  The flu comes around annually and the strains change.  We wash our hands, avoid the infected and we go about our business.  The flu doesn’t go away, it even has its own season!

So, if you haven’t been exposed, you will be sooner or later.  I understand that our (hopefully) once in a lifetime global shut-down was designed to give our medical friends time to develop strategies to fight the new virus, and to give humans time to build up antibodies.  Maybe we’ve enjoyed the break, and maybe we’ll all be better beings because of it, but the fact remains that we can’t stay shut down forever.  Whatever you think normal will be in the coming months and years, we simply have to start walking in that direction sooner or later. 

I read a couple things recently comparing our self-isolation to a cocoon.  I think that’s a beautiful metaphor for what we’ve been doing.  I’m not saying I buy it, but it’s beautiful, nonetheless.  The thing about a cocoon is that it is a temporary space and time.  The Monarch butterfly is a gloriously beautiful butterfly, but we must remember it did not start out that way.  It entered the cocoon as a wingless, flightless creature. It spent its time inside the cocoon changing.  Wouldn’t it be cool if this time of self-isolation created permanent changes in us that helped us bring more beauty to the world when we emerged?