The land of misfit toys

All the weather forecasts and blog posts and facebook statuses and long sleeves and public voices have been quietly uttering the same united tune of fall. Even the smiles on everyone’s faces have turned a different way, in the city that is.

Here on the Outer Banks fall came overnight. Windows were opened, cardigans pulled from the back of the closet, corduroy pants dusted off, and a smile returned to my face, but not for the rest of the Outer Banks, whom thrives on the heat of the summer and the money in their pockets.

(Keep reading, I know you want to.)

And when work began on this cool Monday morning, I expected the weather to be on everyone’s mind, though I was sourly disappointed. Blood pulses differently here. Fall is not welcomed but dismissed. Taken like salt in a wound, as visitors pack up and go home, work gets slower, and the weather gets cooler. Here, fall is just another signal, not a celebration.

Locals have nicknamed the Outer Banks the land of misfit toys and I’m slowly beginning to see exactly how things spin down here. Not backwards or upside down, but everywhere and at no determinable rate. I am always surprised. I am always wrong. I am never adjusted.

In the land of misfit toys, I resist. And with this I wear my fall colors, trash the flops for real shoes, and slip on the corduroy jeans.  I sit in the sun till my bones feel like jelly, spend nights outside with a blanket and a book, and rejoice, because finally it starts to feel more like home.

What fall on the Outer Banks means to me:

• Oysters
• Campers – The small retro kind pulled by a vehicle and tents without mosquito nets.
• A relief from the scalding summer heat and less sunscreen
• Shorts and a T-shirt instead of a bare all bathing suit
• Butterflies and beautiful moths
• Festivals!
• Corduroy pants
• A cool breeze
• The fish return
• A slower pace which makes for easier days
• Sweaters
• Thrifting
• Long deserted walks
• An off leashed dog
• Room to roam
• Traffic – less of it!
• eating out 
• the beginning of winter - with which brings the possibility of snow!