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green voyages
May. 17th, 2024 04:10 pmwednesday i drove from savannah to jekyll island. i went to driftwood beach, where it looks like there was a war between the trees and the waves but everyone lost. the trees are all dead and gray, most toppled and half buried in the sand. the wind or water or maybe the saltwater wind carved thin, delicate, swirling lines into the bark. the exposed roots spiral and splay out like they're trying to become tentacles. it was astounding, alien, and melancholic. it seems hard and carved out, ancient and fossilized. even the water seemed dry.
i would have stayed for hours, but it was so hot. the short walk from my car to the shore was a muggy ordeal. i tried to lay in the blue beach tent i brought and read the oresteia, but even inside with shade i was soon soaked in sweat and could only bear it for about 20 minutes. i really want to go back when it's not so unbearably hot.
after, i went to the sea turtle rehabilitation center. they had a snake inside a tube on an operating table observation area, but i couldn't tell what they were doing to it. one of the employees said they might be grafting the skin of another animal (frog? turtle? fish? i can't remember) onto its infested wound and that this was significant because it hasn't been tried before.
most of the turtles in hospital tanks were there because they were underweight and/or weak. one of the rehabilitators fed chunks of seafood to a green sea turtle named olivine. normally they have a plant-based diet, but they were trying to get olivine back to a healthy weight with protein.
i drove from there to harris neck wildlife refuge. by this time it was late afternoon, after 5. there was no one there, but i took a map and started down one of the trails toward a pond. it was miserable. my chafed thighs were burning. the flying insects were gigantic and nosy. i couldn't go more than a few steps without having to violently swat them away, only for two or three more to buzz in my face and my hair, so i went back to the car. i did see a racoon peek out from the road, and went onto a dock with a beautiful view of the hot blue sky and a vast marsh. i saw a long, thin creature rise up out of the water as it glided along the surface, swiveling its head like a periscope. it must've been a snake, but from where i stood it had the eerie silhouette mystique of loch ness monster pictures.
there were a few billboards i wish i'd gotten pictures of. one was a set of three, each giant pictures of blue sky and white clouds. nothing else. the other was a big white sign saying only "coming soon," half torn off and flagging in the wind.
before going back to the airb&b, i stopped at roadside place called peach world. they got me with their many billboards promising all kinds of peach-flavored things, namely peach smoothies. i really wanted something cold and sweet after all that sweltering nature. they had all kinds of peach-infused things like peach hot sauce, peach candy, peach keyrings, and peach bread. i got a peach smoothie in a plastic cup with little peaches printed all over it, then left.
my last day there, i planned a few more things before leaving town. i tried to visit another wildlife center, with owls and cougars and alligators. it was a very similar experience to harris neck, though. i'd only gone out onto an empty dock and looked in on the aquariumed turtles and snakes in the visitor center before i gave up. i'd started down a trail when a bug flew into my mouth just as three schoolbuses of elementary school children showed up. i got back in my car.
i ate at a lovely, tiny place called café taureau where i had an iced coffee with quiche fromage and fruit and a cinnamon scone.
i almost made it home without buying new books, but then i decided to see if there were any 2nd & charles stores around, since the last one near me shut down during the pandemic. i decided to go a little out of my way to stop at the store in augusta. it was much better than the last few i've been to. a lot of college and high school kids must be offloading their syllabus books, because i've never seen so many copies of the red badge of courage or thomas hardy works in one place. i bought last and first men, portrait of the artist as a young man because they had the norton critical edition, and a volume of transmetropolitan.
during the ride home, i finished listening to the house of mirth. sort of like how succession is the american interpretation of english dramas of court intrigue and royal politics, house of mirth is the american interpretation of a hardy, forster, or bronte novel of manners and society. the manners are infused with the sort of exploitation and greed those novels are too polite to touch on, though. you can see in lily bart some of the future's flawed, listless novel heroines-- those ones i was just complaining about, who trifle with shitty men and self-destructive behaviors, but lily is legitimately a victim of society's expectations and breeding. it's normally hard for me to sympathize with these "beauty is a curse" takes, but there was really a time when a woman's beauty was a kind of medusa's gaze that turned them into an object.
next i started a voyage to arcturus, which was immediately weird and wild. an interstellar adventure by way of dusty alchemical potions and a spiritualism-era séance. my decision not to bother with post-wwii literature for a while continues paying off.
i'm glad i took my detour, because the drive from savannah to augusta was gorgeous. georgia really is a beautiful place. i thought about how many hours i've spent on georgia roads and how the verdant layers of plush, green treetops always impresses me. there was a moment where it seemed surreal and ridiculous that this is possible: i can drive through these places, through towns where strangers live, past crops that strangers tend and land that strangers and their families have owned for decades. even just a large, empty field of wild grass moves me sometimes. there is so much life happening there with nothing to do with me or other people. just greenness soaking in sunlight, food chains churning, tiny specks of life living just to procreate.
i would have stayed for hours, but it was so hot. the short walk from my car to the shore was a muggy ordeal. i tried to lay in the blue beach tent i brought and read the oresteia, but even inside with shade i was soon soaked in sweat and could only bear it for about 20 minutes. i really want to go back when it's not so unbearably hot.
after, i went to the sea turtle rehabilitation center. they had a snake inside a tube on an operating table observation area, but i couldn't tell what they were doing to it. one of the employees said they might be grafting the skin of another animal (frog? turtle? fish? i can't remember) onto its infested wound and that this was significant because it hasn't been tried before.
most of the turtles in hospital tanks were there because they were underweight and/or weak. one of the rehabilitators fed chunks of seafood to a green sea turtle named olivine. normally they have a plant-based diet, but they were trying to get olivine back to a healthy weight with protein.
i drove from there to harris neck wildlife refuge. by this time it was late afternoon, after 5. there was no one there, but i took a map and started down one of the trails toward a pond. it was miserable. my chafed thighs were burning. the flying insects were gigantic and nosy. i couldn't go more than a few steps without having to violently swat them away, only for two or three more to buzz in my face and my hair, so i went back to the car. i did see a racoon peek out from the road, and went onto a dock with a beautiful view of the hot blue sky and a vast marsh. i saw a long, thin creature rise up out of the water as it glided along the surface, swiveling its head like a periscope. it must've been a snake, but from where i stood it had the eerie silhouette mystique of loch ness monster pictures.
there were a few billboards i wish i'd gotten pictures of. one was a set of three, each giant pictures of blue sky and white clouds. nothing else. the other was a big white sign saying only "coming soon," half torn off and flagging in the wind.
before going back to the airb&b, i stopped at roadside place called peach world. they got me with their many billboards promising all kinds of peach-flavored things, namely peach smoothies. i really wanted something cold and sweet after all that sweltering nature. they had all kinds of peach-infused things like peach hot sauce, peach candy, peach keyrings, and peach bread. i got a peach smoothie in a plastic cup with little peaches printed all over it, then left.
my last day there, i planned a few more things before leaving town. i tried to visit another wildlife center, with owls and cougars and alligators. it was a very similar experience to harris neck, though. i'd only gone out onto an empty dock and looked in on the aquariumed turtles and snakes in the visitor center before i gave up. i'd started down a trail when a bug flew into my mouth just as three schoolbuses of elementary school children showed up. i got back in my car.
i ate at a lovely, tiny place called café taureau where i had an iced coffee with quiche fromage and fruit and a cinnamon scone.
i almost made it home without buying new books, but then i decided to see if there were any 2nd & charles stores around, since the last one near me shut down during the pandemic. i decided to go a little out of my way to stop at the store in augusta. it was much better than the last few i've been to. a lot of college and high school kids must be offloading their syllabus books, because i've never seen so many copies of the red badge of courage or thomas hardy works in one place. i bought last and first men, portrait of the artist as a young man because they had the norton critical edition, and a volume of transmetropolitan.
during the ride home, i finished listening to the house of mirth. sort of like how succession is the american interpretation of english dramas of court intrigue and royal politics, house of mirth is the american interpretation of a hardy, forster, or bronte novel of manners and society. the manners are infused with the sort of exploitation and greed those novels are too polite to touch on, though. you can see in lily bart some of the future's flawed, listless novel heroines-- those ones i was just complaining about, who trifle with shitty men and self-destructive behaviors, but lily is legitimately a victim of society's expectations and breeding. it's normally hard for me to sympathize with these "beauty is a curse" takes, but there was really a time when a woman's beauty was a kind of medusa's gaze that turned them into an object.
next i started a voyage to arcturus, which was immediately weird and wild. an interstellar adventure by way of dusty alchemical potions and a spiritualism-era séance. my decision not to bother with post-wwii literature for a while continues paying off.
i'm glad i took my detour, because the drive from savannah to augusta was gorgeous. georgia really is a beautiful place. i thought about how many hours i've spent on georgia roads and how the verdant layers of plush, green treetops always impresses me. there was a moment where it seemed surreal and ridiculous that this is possible: i can drive through these places, through towns where strangers live, past crops that strangers tend and land that strangers and their families have owned for decades. even just a large, empty field of wild grass moves me sometimes. there is so much life happening there with nothing to do with me or other people. just greenness soaking in sunlight, food chains churning, tiny specks of life living just to procreate.