Over there, in the economic world, we have been told that a rising tide lifts all boats.
I could argue that point, but today I am not wandering through the state of Economy. Rather, I am in the town of Edisto Beach, South Carolina, walking the shore, watching the incoming tide, and I am reminded what a beautiful thing it is.
More about that in a sec, but first, Edisto. This small South Carolina barrier island sits off the Atlantic coast, about 40 miles south of Charleston, and it is one of the few sea islands that has not fallen prey to uncontrolled development. There is the historic interior of the island and a small beach town, and on this paradise—where I spent my childhood summers and now own property—is not a single traffic light, not a single high rise hotel. For those who wish to explore this special place further, I have written more about Edisto Island in my book Journeys of Lightheartedness, but here’s what it’s like to approach the island:
A trip to Edisto is haunting, almost as haunting as the mysterious sea island itself. The city and its suburbs screech to a halt, as if a line is drawn beyond which the 21st century cannot pass, and the four-lane highway narrows into two. Far from modern trappings, the back road digs its way eerily to the Atlantic ocean, pushing past stagnant ponds and foggy swamps and past petrified shacks that cluster like headstones around forlorn, forgotten intersections. Thanks to overhanging oak trees and the thick cover of Spanish moss, the highway darkens even on a sunny day. Suddenly, though, you break free. You pass into a marshy perimeter and the road teeters. Near Edisto it collapses altogether and becomes a thin tether with flat pans of marsh to either side. Around a curve the Dawhoo River appears, a blue-blooded vein hugging the lowland. The island is only a bridge away.
The whole island is indeed magical, but, for purposes here, I’ll stick to the shore, where I have had some great walks this week—from the old pavilion down to Jeremy Inlet—just watching the tides roll in and roll out. Over the years, especially after hurricanes, the sea has taken bites and slices out of the beach. I remember after Hurricane Gracie so long ago, the ocean seemed much closer, the beach much narrower. High tide now washed under the stilted homes, the first time in my life I had seen that. One section of beach was even unreachable at high tide, and, after the rattling winds of the storm itself, it made a small child very nervous. As only a child of five could think, I wondered if we might actually drown in the high tides while asleep at night.
My father told me not to worry. The ocean will recede, he told me. Like the tide we see every day, the ocean itself will return to its own space. In a month or two, he said, we’ll never know the storm was here. He was right. Slowly the ocean returned to the boundaries I had imagined for it. The waves and the water, they were trespassers, interlopers, and now they had been deported to their proper homes. I was safe again.
But I never forgot what else my father told me that day. He taught me a great lesson. The ocean wasn’t a trespasser at all, he informed me.