Actually I could have named this pontification "Springing to Columbia" or "Springing to Macon" but it was a country road called 378 in South Carolina that captured my senses one recent late morning and compelled me to write "Springing to Myrtle Beach". Circumstances had put me on this back roads highway from I-95 to Myrtle Beach. Spring had already sprung on Hilton Head, the trees had transformed almost overnight from budding to fresh green leaves but just one hundred miles North in rural South Carolina Mother Nature was still working her magic.
And magic it was, but not the kind you would expect when you hear the word Spring. A front was moving through and dark low ominous clouds filled the Jeeps front window as I headed North East. I could just as easily been on a Pennsylvania farm road in late November but dilapidated faded wood tobacco sheds with with their rusted tin roofs tilted precariously towards God's good earth reminded me that I was indeed in the South.
The six cylinder drowned out any outlying sounds so the experience was purely visual and even more intense. Fields of bright purple plantings spread far and wide down the hedge rows and melted into distant dark green lob-lolly pines. Interspersed was patches of bronzy reds and as the breeze blew over they seemed to melt together in a slow moving tide. This mosaic would appear and then fade into freshly plowed fields as the odometer clicked higher. I was awestruck by this purple beauty and just when the view could not get more delightful a stream of sun broke through the clouds. Like a Kincaid painting the fields turned alive, brimming with fiery life, as if to say the earth is alive and so pleased to present you with its vision.
Road signs warn me to slow as I approach a small village accentuated with a white cross topped pinnacle symbolic of Carolina churches. Red Azaleas and white dogwoods proudly adorn the small homes and streets and daffodils haphazardly sprout on fresh cut yards. It was enough to make me wish I was a painter so I could stop right there, put up my easel and somehow pull the vision onto canvas. But such is not the case and as I approach the aforementioned church the streams of sun and light so prevalent before suddenly disappear and I am suddenly reminded of my mortality. There on my left on church grounds a worker was erecting a small tent over a just dug grave. The vision only lasted a moment but as my accelerator sped me on my way and the vision passed, I couldn't help to feel a sense of deep compassion and reverence. It just seemed so sad that a mortal person that surely would have loved this glorious day had been taken from this earth and would never experience the freshness of another Carolina Spring.
I pass a small gas station and county store and once again I am greeted with rural South Carolina. Off in the distance streams of light pierce through begrudging clouds signaling yet another sun filled warm South Carolina Spring day. My feeling of well being begins to return, my Bride of many years senses it, searches out and inserts a CD into the player. The sounds of "I love beach music" given by a dear friend fills the canvas topped interior. I hang my arm out the open window and with the Jeep in "cruise" tap my free foot, hum the words and envision writing "Springing to Myrtle Beach".
Comments