Season’s greetings

When I look at the scrubby dunes around my house, I have mixed feelings about living on the Outer Banks.

An old colleague once described the beauty of the barrier islands in winter as burnished. And it’s true. Except for the pine trees, live oaks and stubborn shrubs that stay green, the vegetation retreats into visual uniformity with the surrounding sand. It’s stark, but stunning.
 
Now the greenery is resurfacing. Soon, some of the shoots will morph into alien-looking plants with pods that resemble biology-book sketches of deadly viruses.
 
Most are probably benign, but people on the Outer Banks are not likely to believe it. Aside from traffic and hurricanes, allergies probably top the list of most-discussed subjects.
 
Theories abound. A reporter I once worked with thought that the source of sneezes was the northeast wind pushing pollutants from the dirty industrialized northeast onto the Outer Banks. Another Yankee conspiracy, no doubt.
 
More popular is the theory that ragweed grows hidden among the sea oats in dunes along the shoreline. The northeast wind is the culprit again, blowing the offending pollen into populated areas. The ragweed season, however, starts in late summer.
 
Simpler to grasp is dust. You can almost shovel it around here. Where does it come from?
 
I have two ideas. One is that allergies are nature’s way of telling us we’re invaders. They’re the tradeoff for living on barrier islands not really designed to accommodate people. 
 
The other is that I grew up farther north, and since moving below the freeze line almost 30 years ago, I’ve been exposed to pollen species that rattle my immune system. This is no knock on Dixie. I was reared in the Washington, D.C.-area, but my father was an Athens native from a family of University of Georgia professors.
 
Most plausible is my doctor’s explanation. A common misconception is that the prolific pine pollen due in a few weeks takes over our respiratory systems. But the hardwood trees disperse smaller pollen that’s not nearly as visible and has an easier time getting into our airways.
 
Which brings me back to my mixed feelings. Another good one is that I no longer have a yard that takes over my life every weekend in the spring. No more raking tiny live oak leaves and the fuzzy stuff that follows. No more trimming a dozen or so “decorative” shrubs: I once hacked one down in utter frustration. No more lawn to mow.
 
Except for a narrow strip of grass and a slow-growing hedge line, all I need to maintain are those alien-looking plants.
 
It’s almost time to break out the weed whacker.