Plague Journal, The Page Turns
We enjoyed a last walk along the beach at Nags Head. The gently rolling surf enveloped us in its timeless cadence. I would like to think this island will last forever, the waves will beat on this beach eternally. I know that eternity is an abstraction, a fiction of the mind, and that, change rules over all. Heraclitus of Ephesus was right:
“Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.”
Climate change, global warming is certain to effect the Outer Banks either near term or long term. This strip of sand, seeming in places to be a quarter mile wide with the Atlantic ocean on one side and Albemarle sound on the other, is almost certain to be cut by a supercharged hurricane spun by warming ocean water. Will I again be able to have a fine seafood meal at Tortugas’ Lie? Or walk this strip of sand keeping company with sand pipers, down to the fishing pier? Will I again contemplate the youthful surfers from the rail of the pier, the wooden structure under my feet moving in gentle sway to the force of the waves?
