Reflections on Flatland

On this incredibly large and flat expanse of coastal plain (some call it a peneplane), I compare it to my history of flatlands.  The Central Valley of California, for example, is flatter than Kansas.  Just out of college, I lived in Fresno, where from the east window I could sometimes see the low line of the Sierras, fifty miles away; and from the west window, the coast ranges were barely visible.

Over the “flat” ocean, the number of miles you can see before your line of sight becomes tangent to the water’s curve is roughly the square root of your eye level in feet.  So it was on the Queen Mary II, one cold day on the cold North Atlantic, from my cabin at about a hundred feet above the water, I could see ten miles, beyond which any ship would appear sinking over the horizon.

Here in the swamp, flat is determined by standing water, and last night’s rain has swollen this creek, spreading it far into the forest.

Farmland that was just prepared for planting
is flooded by yesterday's rain

In the marshes, and viney forest of the Albemarle, I am lucky to see a hundred feet, except where the land has been cleared for farming.

What gave rise to this flatness and the swamp?  I respond in the present tense, like geologists do, as my narrative runs always backward:  As the ice melts, when the ocean is four hundred feet lower than it is now, this is not flatland.  Then, I am on a coastline much like the Pacific Coast looking to where my line-of sight touches the curve of the sea.  As the sea rises four hundred feet and backs up into the rivers, sediments settle in slow-moving water, building up the land I stand on today. 

The swamp rises a few inches here at the margin between coastal plain and the inland slopes of North Carolina.  The creek responds with ripples and babbles. 

Swamp Cypress with "knees" that rise from its roots

The dark opaque water of the Albemarle looks like something awful has colored it.  But innocently, it’s tannic acid from the cypress trees that gives it color.  “Of course we will go swimming when the weather warms up,” they say.

Pirates meandered along the Albemarle Sound, finding safe havens in its multitude of hidden back channels and buyable politicians.  Edward Teach (Blackbeard) is the most famous.  But I relate to Mary Reed and Ann Bonney for their intrepidity.  Google them if you wish to learn of female brutality and skullduggery.  

I much prefer the Iroquoian Meherrin to pirates, “people of the muddy water” who came here long before us and avoided the deception of written language.  Archeology, regrettably, is how we know them. 

They call it the Albermarle, and it’s a unique place—half land and half water.  My days in the swamp are fast ending, and I am just beginning to learn the story of how a community adapted to the challenges and opportunities of its unusual home.  The water is both a highway and a barrier, bountiful resource and threatening force.