Monday felt like a snow day.
Not that there was snow on the ground -- or even a threat of snow, as if there ever is in the Lowcountry -- but it was cold and sunny and, because of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I did not have to go into the office. Instead I drank coffee in my pajamas and watched the Today show until I couldn't take it anymore.
Monday not only felt like a snow day to me, it felt like the first snow day of the season, when Mother Nature says, "Stay home, my dears," and we are OK with that.
The first snow day is a reprieve from work and school. It's Pinterest-worthy. It's Instagram-ready. It is bubbling stew, hot chocolate, well-stoked fires and dry socks. It is clean and glistening, full of homebound possibility.
The snow days after that, however, are not.
They are, instead, shovel-fatigued, cabin-fevered -- though never bread-and-milkless -- reminders that we can control our to-do lists, but never the weather.
Nothing we do matters to the weather.
The weather does what it wants, when it wants and how it wants.
Similarly, the ocean doesn't care about our plans.
Land, sea and air exist in an ancient and maybe even mystical war that doesn't belong to us.
They do not notice our wee blip of a lifespan with our houses and cars and families. They do not notice that, after their battles, we are left to pick up the pieces, patch whatever it is they broke, and bury whoever it is they killed.
And they must find it simply adorable that we exert any effort whatsoever in trying to keep them at bay or in undoing what they did.
I had this thought this weekend when I walked by the Folly on Hilton Head Island and again noticed its new drainage pattern.
The Folly is a very old creek that cuts the land between Singleton and Burkes beaches.
Instead of its usual straight and direct drainage route out to the ocean, it now takes a dramatic turn to the right -- as if Mother Nature yelled "HERE" at the last possible second from the backseat.
"HERE! Turn here! I want to see the houses ... They have a beachfront pool! How redundant!"
From the sharp turn at the groin -- which was built to minimize erosion to the nearby dunes -- the Folly's drainage pattern then runs parallel to the beach for a spell, bifurcating the thin strip of exposed beach between here and, really, the west coast of Africa, before gradually making its way inevitably to the sea.
For a long time I let the Folly stop me on my walks. It is a natural turning-around point, even at low tide, when the channel is simply dry flat sand.
I used to be scared of it, though.
"What if I cross it and then the tide rolls in and I'm stuck?" I would think.
I had vague recollections of stories that the Folly was occasionally home to swimming rattlesnakes and alligators with eczema.
I pictured myself wading through the 10-foot wide channel from Singleton back to Burkes and I knew that it was more likely I'd call the Coast Guard before letting that happen. Walking back to 278 was my backup plan.
Then one day, I did it. I kept walking at low tide and felt as triumphant as I did when achieving a new level in Zelda, back in my Nintendo days.
A new adventure. New starfish to see. New jellyfish to step over.
Nature did not hold me back anymore. I was not scared of it. Though I should always be.
Here in the Lowcountry, where we are level with the ocean and defiantly built against its shoreline, it's interesting to think about our struggle to live on its edge.
To survive within its grip.
The ocean wants to change everything around us, but we need for all of this to stay relatively the same and safely so.
We need to live here, to work here and to simply be here in the presence of the mighty ocean but never a victim of it. Our economy, and our happiness, depend on it.
The Folly's channel move is actually not a new phenomenon.
It's something that happens every few years, though not quite as drastically as this latest iteration.
The weather and the ocean decide together, "This piece of land does this now. This sand is ours and we're taking it."
If the channel doesn't go back from whence it came, though -- if Mother Nature doesn't put it where it's supposed to be -- it will get covered over as part of planned renourishment for that area of the beach and a new channel will need to be cut.
Again, we must look so adorable.
Follow columnist and senior editor Liz Farrell at twitter.com/elizfarrell and facebook.com/elizfarrell.
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This story was originally published January 20, 2016 5:38 PM.