The Editor’s Desk
Kiawah, Naturally …
A
few years ago I was chatting with a new friend
who had just moved to Kiawah Island after
living for many years in the Northeast. I asked
her if she had met many new people. Her
answer came thoughtfully and deliberately. “Not really,” she
said, “I am taking it slowly, using this as an opportunity
to re-invent myself.” Her response has resonated with me
ever since. So many of us come from extremely busy lives
in very different parts of the country. Whether we cross
the causeway and stay for a few weeks, a few months, a few
years or forever, our lives, in a sense, begin again. Whether
here for life or for a family vacation, we have an amazing
gift of time to relax into our days and our surroundings. We
have arrived in a place of extraordinary natural beauty and
actually have an opportunity to get to know it well.
We are in a time and place where noticing the world
around us is easier than ever before because we do not
have to move through our days as quickly as we usually
do. Luckily for us, the seasons on Kiawah come and go
softly, slowly, so we can relax into them and watch the
changes around us. Even better, the natural beauty around
us can change an ordinary day into an extraordinary one.
We can see the tiny, darting least terns that nest along our
beach that Christine Sudell describes in her article. We
find the energy to wake the kids early and head to the
beach to observe the special journey of our loggerhead
turtle hatchlings that first fascinated the graduate students
captured in Gene Furchgott’s video. We look along our
marshes and roads every fall to see the sweetgrass in Karl
Ohlandt’s wonderful piece turn its soft pink. Despite
ourgoal of avoiding winter’s chill altogether, we do not ever
fully escape as Tina Schell reminds us in her article about
2014’s Storm Leon.
You have probably noticed changes in Naturally Kiawah
over the past two decades. Once a four-page newsletter
featuring pictures of people who resembled Smurfs, we have
grown into a publication that feels heavier in your hands
and brings you the best of our barrier island’s signature
habitat and wildlife. This month we are taking a few small
steps in new directions as well. We have included our first
poem (by Patricia Frisch).
This issue would not have been possible without the work
of many individuals. Special thanks to Jack Kotz who took
all the photographs of the paintings in this issue and to the
following who helped so much with reviewing contents:
Aaron Given, Jim Jordan, Nick Boehm, Jake Zadic, Michael
Frees, and Briana Borders from The Xerces Society for
Invertebrate Conservation.
We plan to keep moving and improving and invite you to
come with us. If you like what you are seeing, let us know. If
there are special features you would like to have included,
tell us. Best of all, contribute. Send ideas, stories, pictures,
anything that focuses on the natural beauty of Kiawah
Island and our efforts to preserve and maintain it to editor@
kiawahconservancy.org. We cannot wait to open the mail! NK
Spring 2015
“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace
all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” — Albert Einstein
WINTER/SPRING 2015 • VOLUME 33
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