"My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call. I grew up slowly.....
"My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.
I grew up slowly beside the tides and marshes of Colleton; my arms were tawny and strong from working long days on the shrimp boat in the blazing South Carolina heat...
I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low-country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders. As a boy I was happy above the channels, navigating a small boat between the sand-bars with their quiet nation of oysters exposed on the brown flats at the low watermark. I knew every shrimper by name, and they knew me and sounded their horns when they passed me fishing in the river…
To describe our growing up in the low country of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, “There. That taste. That’s the taste of my childhood.” I would say, “Breathe deeply,” and you would breathe and remember that smell for the rest of your life, the bold, fecund aroma of the tidal marsh, exquisite and sensual. the smell of the South in heat. A smell like new milk, semen, and spilled wine, all perfumed with seawater. My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of in-drawn tides."
Be sure to read this with your best southern accent!
RIP Pat Conroy
= new reply since forum marked as read
He was my favorite author and I somehow felt I knew him personally, although of course I didn't.
Cross gently, Pat.
