Chincoteague Calling

I wish I could convey the yearning I feel each time I think of the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  The Teaguers used to say that a person "had Chincoteague sand in their shoes" if they kept returning to the island and ended up moving there.  I wasn't born on the island, but my Mother was, and her family ancestors have lived there since the mid-1600s.  Chincoteague was always my place to escape - and still is.  I'm sitting at my desk, gazing westward out my window and seeing the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, the foothills and Flatirons of Boulder.  I see beauty in them, and their rugged graciousness, but I don't feel the compelling (almost tidal) pull that I feel when thinking about, or looking at photos of, Chincoteague and Assateague Islands.  Island friends and family say that I have Chincoteague sand in my heart and soul.  I guess I do.
  Boulder, Colorado is a wonderful place.  I love my clients as an extended family, and I love all the critters I care for as if they were/are mine.  While in Boulder, and it's surrounds, I have come into contact with wildlife that I haven't experienced "up close and personal" before - but that also happened when my husband and I lived in Crows, Virginia.  I had my first experiences with groundhogs there.  Each place I have lived has allowed me insights to the natural world - walking into the back yard and finding a mountain lion crouched over a freshly killed deer,  watching groundhogs raid the vegetable garden, seeing bobcats and bears mark the trees in their territories.  I learn from each of these experiences.  I look up information on whatever weird questions pop into my mind regarding an animals' behavior.
   Mom and Dad told me to never stop questioning.  I don't think I have.  One of my biggest questions is, why do I have this compulsion to return to Chincoteague and Assateague?  Yes, my maternal family has lived there for over 350 years.  They were watermen and farmers.  Do I get all this yearning for the islands as an ancestral need or memory?  I love to hear the skree sound of a hunting hawk or eagle, but my heart bubbles with joy when I hear the cacophony of a flock of sea gulls squabbling over fish offal, or emptied clam and oyster shells.  All I know is that I want to smell the odors of the sea, of the salt marsh and hear the cries of sea-faring birds and hear the surf on the shore.  I can be happy in a forest, I can be happy in the mountains, I can be happy in a museum or reading history, I can be happy exploring another country and their culture - but I am only truly joyful on two islands off the coast of Virginia, in the Atlantic Ocean.  There is my home.