Outer Banks Articles & Shorts - Issue 24: Spring 2021

Publisher's Letter

I’m looking out my (home) office (still!) windows and seeing clumps of daffodils emerging. There are buds on the pear tree, and we just might have missed (again!) the timing on our pre-emergent to control those lovely (at least they’re green!) weeds trying to outdo our centipede.

Why all the parentheticals, you might be wondering?

I feel like 2020 was a parenthetical in many ways – so many side comments meant to edify, emphasize, provide detail, add a personal touch. I imagine that we all share some commonalities about the past 12 months: disorientation over the relative isolation, worry about ourselves or loved ones or a reorganizing of our lives in so many ways.

But the parentheticals have been, I believe, unique (and here’s one place I’m willing to use that numbingly overused word) to each of us. Even if we can say that we appreciated the enforced quietude, the experience of it was inevitably different for each of us. How directly we were impacted by a serious illness or death from the pandemic is not equal among us. How we used our less-structured time varied, I’m sure.

But it’s in the parentheticals that I think we’ve all grown. We had to adapt, we got to lend a hand perhaps more than we usually would have, maybe we even had deeper insights into our own psyches given the extraordinary circumstances of 2020.

And I think we’re going to need that deeper insight (and stored up energy) for the vacation season ahead of us. From the clients we’re talking to these days, it’s going to be a doozy. Vacation rentals are surging, and hotel and adventure reservations are coming in at a grand clip. Whether we’re totally ready as an area or not, it looks like the after burn from being cooped up for months is going to be hot, hot, hot.

So, here’s to Spring 2021 … to warm weather, busy schedules, immunity, blooming flowers and seeing our friends again. (Will we recognize each other? Yikes!)

VIEW A DIGITAL VERSION OF THIS ISSUE