Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 30, 1995 TAG: 9507280045
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: RODANTHE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Some of us go to the lake, some to the mountains, and millions of us go to the sea.
A stretch of the shore that's special for me is the North Carolina Outer Banks.
The trip there last week was like a pilgrimage to holy ground.
Though the whole strip of barrier islands is much more commercially developed than during my last trip 17 years ago, it remains to me a magically primitive stretch of coastline.
Fortunately, the foresight of those who designated long stretches of this fragile place as a national park has ensured that visitors today can see vistas little changed from what the Wright Brothers saw as they made the first powered flight near here almost a century ago. Maybe some of it even looks much the same as what a little band of English colonists saw when they met native chiefs Wanchese and Manteo more than 400 years ago.
This little community - which is pronounced roe-DAN-thee - was one of the earliest resort communities on the Outer Banks, though development in the last half-century has largely been north of here at Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head.
Separated from those commercial boomtowns by about 15 miles of undeveloped National Seashore, Rodanthe juts out on the easternmost tip of the bow that is Hatteras Island. From here, beaches stretch northwest to Oregon Inlet and southwest to Cape Hatteras and its majestic lighthouse.
Here is Chicamacomico, where the men of the U.S. Lifesaving Service, forerunner of the Coast Guard, risked their lives to save shipwrecked sailors.
Though I wasn't shipwrecked, this was just the place for a little spiritual resuscitation.
Anywhere you turn in this place, you are reminded of how delicate is the balance of conditions that sustain life in humans. In many places the Atlantic Ocean to the east is separated from Pamlico Sound to the west by a strip of soil less than two football fields wide. The sand seems hospitable mostly to scrubby shrubs, sand spurs, and breeding pools for mosquitos. What fresh water that can be dredged up from wells is brackish and foul.
The ocean visibly reshapes and re-forms these islands a little bit every day. The surf drags sand from one place to move it to another. The ocean works constantly, unwearily molding and shaping, destroying and rebuilding.
This is a place to be reminded that beauty and sustenance sometimes come at a price. In the beauty of the surf is the power to destroy the brittle houses that face the shore. Maintaining human life here involves compromise with shifting sand and unruly water.
Though there is every human convenience here, you cannot help but notice that everything built by humans is subject to the whim of nature.
Ceaseless wind, salty air, corrosive surf and wandering sand always have the upper hand, always are in control, always work to erase the intrusions of mankind.
While it is our human nature to fight to control the environment around us, this is a place where we are reminded that ultimately we can never win against natural elements that defy our will.
What is surprising is that such a realization can be liberating. We are NOT in control all the time. Something or someone else controls these forces. Whether we call the controller God or Nature, we must acknowledge it is not humankind.
Understanding the limits of our power can free us to concentrate on the things that we can control - the things that really matter in our lives.
I cannot stop the surf from pounding away the sand at the base of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, but I can offer a hand to the person struggling up the last few steps to the top of the light.
I cannot stop the riptide that pulls unwary swimmers out to sea from the surf, but I can join the lifesaving crew that will throw them lifelines.
I cannot long divert the stroll of a wall of sand, but I can stay out of its path.
And I cannot stop human beings from wanting to flock to retreats such as this where they can rinse out their souls in the rough laundry of these waves, but I can be a good example of responsible behavior so this place will be here for my grandchildren to come refresh their spirits, too.
by CNB