How do I tell her that when she knits her brow in frustration, her eyebrows drawing together as though snagged on the bobbin teeth of a sewing machine, that she is beautiful?  How do I whisper “you are beautiful” and apply those words to her heart with a glue so strong it will not give way to the insidious eroding of beauty magazines, Hollywood fever, and middle school girls’ bathroom gossip?  How do I tell her that “beautiful” is not an adjective I dole out like a reward candy when she is perfectly composed, perfectly behaved, and perfectly attired?

She is beautiful in herself.

Beauty seeps out of her pores when she has draped herself in a two-and-a-half “I didn’t get my way” funk on the floor.  Beauty bowls me over when she offers me a charred nub of sweet potato fry and says, “Here.  This is for mama.”  Beauty slaps me upside the head when her hair mats to her neck with sweet naptime sweat.

How do I tell her she is beautiful when she raises a fire-engine whine as we leave the bank?  ”No.  I want a pinkandpurple lollipop,” the siren pitches while clutching a pink lollipop in an enraged fist.

When she is most herself in her fiery moods, cool moods, happy moods, shy moods, joyful moods, whiny moods, sleepy moods, enchanting moods, impish moods, she is beautiful.

She doesn’t have to dress up, make-up, and behave herself to be beautiful.

To me, she is in her very essence beautiful.  At every minute.  In any condition.

Even when she wakes up in the middle of the night, plowing a deep furrow in the otherwise placid field of my sleep.

Even when a pink lollipop is not quite good enough.

Even when the world will try to convince her she is not…

…She is beautiful.

John Keats stood in the chill halls of a museum in a year that began with the long-ago number of 18 and pondered a Grecian urn.  In that preserved vessel of a bygone era, he stumbled upon the same pit-of-the-stomach truth that is thrust upon me along with a ketchup-dripping fry: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty–that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

In being who she truly is, all glorious parts, version, iterations, and movements of her, she is beautiful.

How do I tell her?

This post is gratefully inspired by and shared with The Gypsy Mama’s Five Minute Friday.

Star Anna is loaded into my Pandora radio station, uncharacteristic clouds cover the beach sky, and I’ve got a cup of coffee at my elbow.  Ah, vacation.   This week, while I’m vacationing at our favorite family summer destination, Edisto Island, SC, I’ll be taking a trip down Belle Squeaks’ memory lane to revisit some popular posts from the past year.    Today’s post first appeared  on August 6, 2010.

It happens somewhere between Beach Access 36 and 37.  The Low Country magic.  It’s a magic that has less to do with fairies, goblins, and changelings, and more to do with dark drapes of Spanish moss, fretting palmetto fronds, and sticky breezes slinking across bare shoulders.  Edisto Island traps a bit of this Low Country magic, or perhaps the Island brews a batch all its own. The magic is strongest off of a dead-end spur of asphalt, along which the beach access markers stand as the only invitation to emerge, sandy-footed and wary, in a world just this side of heaven.

Beach Access 36 on Yacht Club Road is my preferred invitation to answer.  A lone blue sign, sandwiched between one overgrown yard and one well-appointed beach home, marks a cement path that winds playfully through a snagging tunnel of shrubs, vines, and trees.  It’s the kind of path that makes one wish for a handful of crumbs to drop, piece by furtive piece, like Hansel and Gretel.  Then the concrete ends and a stretch of footprint-pocked sand plows on through the walls of nodding sea oats.  The magic begins.  From the surrounding grass dunes, flocks of white butterflies cavort around orange flowers sprinkling the sand like a paisley cloth.  The grey expanse of sea heaves, advances, retreats.  If you’re fortunate, a pod of dolphins threads the waves just off-shore with the pacing of a slow sewing machine’s needle.  Look to your left.  To your right.

Chances are good, not another human is in sight.

Welcome to Edisto Island.

The 55-square miles of Edisto Island offer a surprisingly affordable haven from other Southern-state barrier islands sinking under the weight of commercialization.   Like some Brigadoon that owes its sacred preservation to magic, Edisto is an island that time, and obnoxious homogenization, has overlooked.  Edisto Island offers vacationers exactly two gas stations, one grocery store, zero stoplights, and miles upon miles of sparsely populated beaches.  After growing up spending my summer vacations on Edisto, I made the mistake (make that MISTAKE) of once visiting a New Jersey beach where I got a boardwalk splinter in my heel and paid $5 to squeeze my oiled body five bodies back from the lackluster water lapping the littered sand.  In comparison, the calm, decidedly un-flashy state of Edisto Island suits me just fine.

Now that Little Friend plunges with reckless abandon into the waves, completely oblivious to the fact that she can’t yet swim a stroke and scours the beach for “diggers” (shells) to excavate trenches in the sand, I appreciate in new ways the sanctuary Edisto Island offers.  The beaches are populated by multi-generational families content to take in sunsets while posing for photos sure to appear on cards come December.  Edisto’s roads are patrolled by vigilant policemen who reportedly wag fingers at cars daring to go two miles over the posted speed limit.  Family bike caravans and sun-kissed tween golf-cart drivers jockey for bike path positions in a perpetual game of Frogger. For many of us who continue to vacation on Edisto year after year like a species of migratory birds, the island feels like a Low Country extension of a safe, family neighborhood.

Fortunately, enjoying Edisto Island’s magic comes with a surprisingly affordable price tag.  A week’s rental for a four-bedroom beach home costs significantly less than a comparable stay at a hotel.  Mouthwatering meals from a number of local restaurants rival McDonalds’ extra value meals in taste andprice.  Enough free outdoor activities abound to pack a whole week’s vacation and still leave items untried for the next visit.  As I rather unwillingly turned my sand-infested car inland last Friday, I babied my post-vacation grief by making a mental list of what to do when I came back.  Because the coming back is never in question.  Not on Edisto.  The beauty, safety, and magic of Edisto Island create an elixir far more potent than a typical family vacation.  Beware.  This Island threatens to create family traditions.

Where to Eat

Low Country cooking is the marrow, lifeblood, back bone (and every other life-giving metaphor I can concoct) to Edisto Island cuisine.  ”Fresh, simple, local” seem to be key words on most menus around the island.  What better words could you use to charm the taste buds off the vacationing public?  To us Yankees, nothing beats the sandpaper rasp of fresh peach fuzz on our tongues and the thick juice sliding down our chins.  The best South Carolina peaches are bought from the back of a pick up truck parked at unpredictable times along Highway 174 just before crossing the causeway between island and beach.  Nicknamed “Pick-Up Truck Peaches” by my family, we’ve learned to swerve off the road the minute we see the telltale pick up in the distance.  Empty your wallet into the gnarled, calloused hand of the farmer and head home with as many peaches as your basket will hold.  Attraction begins with the first smell.  Addiction begins with the first taste.  Edisto Seafood (3729 Docksite Road |(843) 869-3446) offers the best local fruit from the sea.  The fishing boat parked out back trolls the Atlantic waters each dawn and brings back the shrimp bounty to be sorted and sold in-store.  Family members familiar with each local fish, shrimp, and oyster provide prompt, friendly, and helpful service.  We have yet to be anything but impressed with Edisto Seafood’s daily haul.

Big Friend and Little Friend get a “kick” out of Edisto

If the kitchen is off-limits on vacation, head out to Sea Cow Eatery (145 Jungle Road | 843-869-3222) for a leisurely breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  The lines, especially in high season, are part of the local charm.  Adopt “Edis-Slow” time and wait on the deck to be called to a table, indoors or out.  The breakfasts are reliable and hearty.  Leisurely lunches are best enjoyed at McConkeys Jungle Shack (108 Jungle Rd | (843) 869-0097), located just steps away from the Atlantic Ocean.  The “Shack” is festooned with jungle kitsch that stops on the fashionable side of the line between shabby and chic.  While take-out certainly gets the delicious food on your plate, it’s worth dining in for the atmosphere captured inside the tiny, screened porch.  The 8 oz. hand-formed hamburgers could win nationwide juicy burger contests, while the cheese quesadillas never disappoint.  Of course, fish tacos and an ice cold beer go down real easy, too.  If possible, save room for a homemade dessert along the lines of the tartly-pleasing key lime pie or the thick, creamy coconut pie.  With high-quality ingredients and made-to-order service, McConkey’s offers some of the best food on the island at insanely reasonable prices.

With a five-star Southern Barbeque joint in the neighborhood, why consider going anywhere but Po’ Pig Bo-B-Q (2410 SR-174 | 843-869-9003) for dinner?  My family plans our weekly meals around Po Pig’s schedule (open Wednesdays through Sundays in the summer, Thursdays through Sundays in the off seasons).  The food is so incredibly good, we fast for hours beforehand to make sure we have optimal space to stuff the “all-you-care-to-eat” buffet.  And yes, we care to eat A LOT.  The steaming buffet line serves up smoke-cooked pork, dark meat, light meat, pork cracklin’s, various hashes (made from animal parts–don’t ask, just eat) to ladle over white rice, smoked turkey, grilled and fried chicken, and a Creole-flavored red chicken stew. The array of sides swamps even the most carefully conserved plate: turnip greens, green beans, okra and tomatoes, macaroni and cheese, squash casserole, white rice, red rice, lima beans and ham, baked beans, stewed cabbage, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes with lemon, and onion-studded hushpuppies.  A tall drink of sweet tea washes it all down perfectly.  Usually, room for dessert is a moot question.  At $9.25 per endlessly-refillable buffet plate, Po Pig is a steal.  Ignore your misgivings over the location of Po’ Pig Bo-B-Q (squeezed in next to a gas station along Highway 174), wear your loosest, most forgiving clothing, and prepare to feast, Southern-style.

What to Do

Kayaking the tidal marshes, combing the beaches for sea glass and shells, hiking the Edisto State Park trails to ancient Indian oyster mounds, packing picnic dinners for beach sunsets, setting crab traps and waiting patiently at picturesque Steamboat Landing: the list of free or inexpensive Edisto Island activities seems endless.  Certainly more than enough to pack a week’s vacation time and again.  And that’s just if you elect to stay on the Island.  With Charleston a one-hour car ride away and Savannah a two-hour drive, the temptation to visit these impossibly elegant Southern cities is almost irresistible.  Whatever your schedule, don’t miss these Edisto Island activities.

A marsh boardwalk in Edisto Beach State Park

Edisto Beach State Park contains a myriad of family activities, thanks to the epicenter, The Environmental Learning Center.  The Learning Center’s hands-on interactive exhibits entertain everyone from kids to adults.  (Little Friend recommends waving “hi” to the snapper turtle and driving the mock fishing boat.)  Daily organized activities range from feeding the marine animals to crab-cooking demonstrations to sea turtle reconnaissance.  The Environmental Learning Center updates their program schedule weekly, so stop by early in your visit to pick up a schedule.  Many forest trails through the State Park also begin at the Learning Center, so wear comfortable walking shoes.  The Environmental Learning Center is free to all, although donations are gladly accepted (and well-deserved).

The newest addition to Edisto State Park holdings is theBotany Bay Plantation tour and beach.  Only recently opened to the public, the Botany Bay beach exudes an eerie beauty.  Skeletal limbs of salt-deadened trees line the pristine sand.  Since it’s currently forbidden to secret away a single shell souvenir, the trees and beaches have been liberally decorated with whole whelk and conch shells and cockle shells bigger than an adult’s hand.  The half-mile walk to the beach traverses  a causeway through undisturbed marsh habitats ruled by flocks of ibises, colonies of fiddler crabs, and beds of clicking oysters.  A driving tour (free map available at park entrance) also travels through plantation artifacts: a tabby oven, foundations of former plantation homes, the remains of slave cabins, and even an intact ice house with Victorian flair. Children, and their accompanying adults, are permitted to fish in a large saltwater lake on the property.

Every vacation needs a bit of shopping, and Edisto does not disappoint in this regard either.  While a number of shops fit the “vacation souvenir” bill, With These Hands Gallery (1444 Highway 174 | 843-869-3509) is a unique gem within the shopping scene.  Showcasing American handicraft talents, the Gallery’s always-intriguing stock includes handmade jewelry, baby gifts, original artwork, and handmade pottery.  The store’s selections are souvenirs worth hanging above a fireplace mantle.  Heading back toward the beach from With These Hands, be sure to stop in the Edisto Bookstore (547 Highway 174 | 843-869-1885).  I haunt this independent bookseller on each visit to the Island to replenish my stack of “must-read” books.   The care and insight with which the featured books are chosen warms my little English teacher heart.  With a great children’s section and fairly extensive used-book area, the Edisto Bookstore has a little something for everyone.  Unique gifts and souvenirs are also tastefully placed amongst the stacks of books.  You’ll just have to fight the resident cat, Gracie, for the favored spots.

Where to Stay

Edisto Beach…Nature’s Room with a View

With no hotel on the island, beach home rentals comprise the bulk of accomodation options.   Located on breathtaking St. Helena Sound (nothing like eating dinner overlooking a vivid sunset and cresting dolphins), the tastefully appointed Dolphin Watch (six bedrooms, sleeps 14) is conveniently situated between my favorite beach access points (36 and 37).  For true beach lovers who crave falling asleep to the rhythmic roar of waves, look no further than the poetically named Cerulean, a beach front house (sleeps 12) with so much curb appeal that it makes me stumble a step each time I pass it on a run.  The insides are as gorgeous as the outside.  Of course I’m hopelessly biased, but I prefer my parent’s rental beach home the best.  Located just a row back from the beach, four-bedroom (sleeps 10) Waves of Gracebacks up to a tidal marsh and is surrounded by mature live oaks and palmettos.  In the off-season, we sleep with our sliding bedroom doors open and let the rushing surf serenade our dreams all night long.  In a word, Heaven.

What to Read

Ah, the classic beach read.  Made even better with settings and characters drawn straight from the salt marshes and maritime forests of the Southern coast.  Here are my three life-long favorite beach reads that provide a Low Country mental journey while my feet are planted firmly in Low Country sand.

“Beach Music” by Pat Conroy

“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” by John Berendt

“Sweetwater Creek” by Anne Rivers Siddon

“Life.  Life is God’s greatest gift.”  It’s a quote from Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible.  It’s a quote that I used like a billy club to beat the bushes of my stupefied Honors 11 students to flush out the ones who had actually read the assigned pages.  It’s a quote I wish I had let pass undisturbed in front of their uncomprehending eyes.

It’s a truth-filled quote.  A wonder-filled quote.  A power-filled quote.  I’m glad at their age they didn’t yet understand it.

Indeed, I myself didn’t understand it until I had been plucked from that classroom and plopped down on a hospital bed, drifting in and out of drugged consciousness while my hours-old 3 lb 14 oz baby dozed two floors down in an incubator.

It was weeks later, back on my feet after passing through my own crucible, hands submerged in a sink of soapy dishes, that I realized, with knee weakening force, the wonder of it: Life is God’s greatest gift.

Not the life we imagine.  Not the life that we had before.  It’s life right now that brings such a breath-stopping force of wonder.  The sheer joy of being alive and able to tackle the mundane task of washing a crusted pan.  A blessing.

I see it now.  I breathe it now.  I live it now.  Life is God’s greatest gift.  And what a great love He shows for us in the simplest of things:

The morning bird melody that greets me in the dawn.

The bustle of evening transition as Big Friend arrives home and dinner plates shuttle to the table.

The smile of a Little Friend who is quickly growing from two to three.

What a wonder.

Not through any quiz I could have devised in my class, I’ve learned that wonder–the real kind that can blow out the windows of a Hallmark store (full of wonder-filled sentimental cards) with its force–that wonder can only come when all else is stripped away.  And then, when all you have to fill your hands is the leftover crust of dinner dishes, wonder comes in, with all the silken, heavy luxuriousness of a Dorie Greenspan flourless chocolate cake, and soothes the weary soul.

When I met Big Friend, his wardrobe relied a little too heavily on tapered, stone-washed jeans.  Or the jean’s “Sunday Best” friend: the tapered, pleated khakis.  (And I married him? you ask.  Yuppers.)  Sometimes being backward is only skin deep.  Sometimes being backward is just something to shed and send away in the wash.  (Fast forward to now.  Dark, boot legged jeans and flat-front khakis.  Sometimes moving forward is good, too.)

Motherhood has done something to me.  It’s rooted me in the here-and-now,  made me give up the belief that both yesterday and tomorrow must be better than today.  It’s a change that prior to two years and seven months ago I would have cited as unattainable as learning to speak fluent French in two weeks.  Yet here I am.  I find myself looking longingly at what’s behind (toothless grins, pureed foods, first steps, milky breath, doll-sized onesies, a head that could be cradled in my palm) at the same time as my eyes tug forward (packing lunch boxes, sleep overs, handing over car keys, giving detailed laundry instructions for dorm washers).  The backward and the forward are equally good.  They cancel each other out.  I’m left with the satisfaction of living in the here and now.

The Now that includes some of this:

And this:

And usually wraps up this as well:

Here’s the problem with too much backward.  Looking too much backward makes me cling nostalgically to things that really weren’t all that great at the time.  Like the nights when Mean Mommy took up residence from the hours of 12 pm to 6 am.  (Note: Mean Mommy may have looked just like me, albeit with a snarled pompadour hair-do and Evil-Kinevil eyes, but I swear she’s another beast altogether.)  Or like tapered, stone-washed jeans.  There are some things just better left in the past.

Motherhood’s taught me that Now can be better than Backward or Forward.

It’s hard to ignore the meteorologists’ long-faced reports on the weather state of the union: floods gobbling up Mississippi riverbanks while the parched throat of Texas gasps for a sip of rain.  It’s hard to avoid grumbling about the daily spread of weather that unfurls at my front door: hazy, hot, and humid in early May followed by wet, clingy, and cool in late May.  Floods and droughts.  Hot is bad, but cool is bad too.

It’s kind of easy to complain about weather, regardless of the ironic self-contradiction.

Never mind that I spent the winter driven deep into the shell of my home like a hermit crab confronted with an ice cube discarded on the beach.  Never mind that I longed for days of slides, neighborhood walks, and lemonade.  Nevermind that my soul expands with a cat’s stretch at the first fumes of forsythia.

It’s kind of easy to complain about weather.

Especially when you live in Pittsburgh and the 10-day weather report has, for the past two 10-day periods, served up rain, drizzle, dribble, shower, storm, and drip.

Then you run into someone with grace enough to embrace the weather in any form:

Suddenly, a season’s change is a welcome pause.

The pads of my toes grind against the pebbled grit of the diving board.  My heels are bisected by the edge–one half squelching off into thin air, the other half rooted to the pebbled grit.  My arms swing up.  Swing down.  My back arches, testing the spandex limits of my suit.  The crown of my head snaps backward, a blunt object of traumatic force assaulting the ions, pollen, and sun motes of air between here and there.  There.  The undulating surface of blue chlorine, rushing toward me unseen as I attempt this first back dive, an undertaking of bravery so beautiful that its grace of child-trust takes my breath away as much as the shock of cold water on my fingernail beds that hit first, then the tails of my braids, then the back of my head, then the small of my back as I back-flop into the pool.  Deep breath and then my nose goes under.  Hold.  Exhale.

The pads of my fingers wrap around a finger the size of a shoelace, a wet pretzel, a pencil.  This little finger strains to break away, strains to explore the world of a field of dandelions yellow and white.  With a final sweaty tug, she launches away from my hug-circumference of a world that has kept her contained for fourteen months of life.  She doesn’t look back, but I look forward.  Toward the kindergarten bus stop.  Toward teachers who won’t gift star stickers just for being a precious slip of a soul.  Toward the dates with boys who drive at speeds I won’t condone in cars I don’t own.  Toward pillows wet with tears I can’t distract by a dandelion.

Deep breath and my heart goes under.  Hold.

Dandelion hunting back at sixteen months

On days like this, when I can only squeeze in a moment of writing between deep breaths, I am ever so grateful for the inspiration provided by The Gypsy Mama, a lovely writer, on Five Minute Fridays.  Visit to read other Five-Minute thoughts on Deep Breaths or join in with your own contribution!

Twas much,
that man was
made like God before,
But that God should
be like man
much more

{John Donne,  1572-1631}

If you’re a dedicated Belle Squeaks reader (Hi, Mom), you’ve noticed a drop off in posts the last few weeks.  First came the travel excuse: far from home with limited internet access, o woe is me.  Second came the stomach flu excuse: I re-thought my dedication to natural childbirth as I dry heaved into the porcelain throne for the eighth time in four hours.  Third came the child-with-stomach-flu excuse: seeing dinner a second time is much, much less appetizing when it’s someone else’s and it arrives splattered on your pajamas at 1:30 am.  Now my final excuse: my to-d0 list could fill an encyclopedia.  All that to say, Belle Squeaks has been slow lately but will be up and running per usual come Monday.  Please stop back.

Luckily, Little Friend has been teaching me a thing or two about the inadequacy of words lately.  Granted, she’s still not speaking more than ten intelligible words (yes, I’ve called my doctor in sheepish mom-frenzy, and no, there’s no cause for alarm, yet, and yes, I’m already worrying about the “yet”), so treatises on the exhilarating beauty of fall are simply not to be found in our house this year.

But sometimes a face can speak louder than any word.

Like this face.  After her very first sip of hot chocolate.

Nothing like playing in afternoon rain puddles to arrive back in a snug, warm kitchen with real hot chocolate in the mug.  Little Friend did say one word after her first sip: “Moooooore.”

To enjoy your own rainy autumn day hot cocoa, look no further than Penzey’s Spices’ Dutch Cocoa.  Just 4 Cups of milk, 3 TB sugar, 2 TB Dutch Cocoa, and a dash of cinnamon and vanilla heated on the stove will have you saying “Mooooore” too.