We decided to slip away for the weekend before my husband starts his new job on Monday. A quick 5 hour drive southeast takes us to our happy place – St. Simons Island.
St. Simons is where I spent many summer vacations as a kid and then where I spent a summer nannying for an amazing family. Jason and I were married there in 1998 and have tried to get back every year since. Henry loves The Island and asks to visit often.
Recently, the toll plaza was removed from the Causeway. While that saves 35 cents every time you go across from Brunswick to St. Simons, it doesn’t give us the landmark in which to switch from “regular time” to “Island Time.”
No matter how hot or cold, unless it’s pouring down rain, that’s the point where the sunroof and windows open. Deep breaths of ocean air are breathed in.
The body relaxes and pressure is taken off the accelerator.
Life moves slower on The Island.
Even at 8 years old, Henry knows this. He gets quieter, his body relaxes and his brain is quiet. My brain opens up so I can actually write and process life.
Island Time is good for the soul.
Like ocean air and salt water, it cleanses the senses, heals hurts, and refreshes the mind and body.
Today we’ll mosey around The Island doing whatever we choose. There are no schedules, no reservations, no plans. If we stay in our room or the indoor pool all day, that’s what we will do. And it will be a-ok!
I mean, with a view like this, who would want to move any faster than Island Time?
Is there a place you go where life slows down and you feel like a renewed person when you leave?
An Auburn football fanatic and bourbon lover, Jana Anthoine is a true Southern Belle who thinks writing is so much better for her soul than paying a therapist. After the death of her first son in 2003, she opened up her heart to help others who are grieving and to advocate for Group B Strep awareness, with her husband and son as her biggest supporters. Jana writes about life, loss, and laughter at jana’s thinking place. You can find her on twitter @jana0926
How wonderful to have such a special place close enough to home to enjoy often!
It is lovely! Thanks
This hits home. Literally. I’ve been living in one of the places where people go for their Island Time — New Zealand. Now, Island Time is my lifestyle, or at least it’s slowly becoming my lifestyle.
So my Island Time isn’t about geography. It’s about getting out of my head space and shifting my view of where I am. Speaking of which, it’s about time I walked down to the beach
That’s a wonderful way to look at it. Hope you had a nice jaunt to the beach!
It would be so nice if we could transfer “island time” to become “regular, every day time” and learn to slow down, breath in the ocean (or mountain or desert or city) air, and find that happy contentment every day.
I wish we could do that. I find myself trying from time to time but it doesn’t always work