My Southern Retreat
...d flooded my nostrils. My mother would make homemade moist and gooey chocolate chip cookies, and then would scold us if we tried to eat one before supper. The smell of freshly baked cookies was overwhelming to my brother and me. A dinner favorite that my mother would sometimes cook was lamb. I remember how tempting the aroma of slow cooked lamb and potatoes was after being outside in the salty sea air all morning. Outside of the yellow house, blasts of humid, southern air tossed my hair about as if to play with me. The familiar, caressing light of the sun kissed all of my senses and warmed my soul. A different smell greeted me depending on where I stood. To the right of me, the smell of grilled fish, seasoned beef, and sautéed vegetables from the neighbors cookout teased my ever growing hunger. To the left of me, I smelled the aloe and sunscreen of the handful of tourists basking in the sun. The smells of the yellow beach house will always be branded in my mind and heart. The yellow porch on the front of the yellow house was often a favorite place to just relax. I cannot recall all of the sights that I saw from the porch, but there are a few that have stuck with me. The first sight that I remember was observing the Bottlenose dolphins play in the shining Atlantic Ocean. That memory almost seems like a dream because the dolphins looked so magical they way they would leap into the air and play with each other. I laughed at tourists who watched the dolphins from their boats because they were afraid of them. I remember watching the neon colored Frisbees being thrown back and forth between children and adults. I thought it was funny how such a flimsy piece of plastic could entertain people for hours. Every so often a Frisbee would fly too far into the ocean, and then a child would cry incessantly over the lost plastic. Another memory I have is watching the children and adults bond over building sand castles. Sometimes the adults would compete against each other, and therefore the innocence of it all was lost. The sand was of a light pecan color, and the farther the children dug to get sand for their castle, the darker the sand got until it was gray. These are just a few of the memories I have from observation from the yellow porch at my yellow beach house. I recall playing various games around and inside of the sunflower house. The one game that I remember playing the most was hide-and-go seek with my younger brother, Matthew. The house was rather large in stature, so there were plenty of places to hide from each other. Sometimes I would secretly watch Matthew carefully select a place to hide. The way the petite child would scout the area around the land like a soldier looking for a place to hide from the enemy made me giggle with happiness. On occasion we would dress to camouflage ourselves during hide-and-go seek. I recall one instance, for example, one time on a humid, southern day, Matthew applied bright yellow paint to his face, hands, and ears, and clothed himself in matching colored pants and a T-shirt and shoes. I believe now that he painted those shoes and clothes. He thought he would be so clever as to prop his tiny body against the side of the house and “blend in”. Needless to say he stood out like a sore thumb because his hair and eyes are chocolate brown colored. Playing hide-and-seek with my brother and other activities are memories that will play in my heart for years to come. The Palmetto trees ominously stood on either side of the house. The two Palmetto trees stood as if to guard the house. The trees were about thirty feet high, but as a child seemed to reach the Heavens. The trees were aged and weathered, like my grandmother who has so delicately projected her life span upon this earth through her indentions. The Palm leaves that covered the top of the trees like a bad toupee were falling apart and leathery to the touch. The leaves were around five feet in length, and three feet in width, but at the time they seemed it seemed as if one leaf could clothe a thousand men. I remember how the bark from the trees stuck out like a thousand harmless knives. The bark was paper thin and jagged, and every so often Matthew and I would peel off the “skin” and attempt to draw colorful pictures on them. One time my brother drew a picture of our family with magic markers on a piece of bark from one of the Palmetto tree, and tossed it ou...