Sunday, November 25, 2012

On the Ride Of Your Life, Sometimes You Have to Hold On

The porch and yard and driveway are covered in leaves and twigs that have shook loose from their oak trees. The rake is locked up in the owner's storage unit, and even though I predict the fruitlessness of this, I sweep them off with the broom anyway, knowing that a gust will bring them right back to settle out side the window where I sit on my yoga mat. Nature rules supreme here.


“As I let go of the need to arrange my life, the universe brings abundant good to me.” Deepak Chopra’s voice soothes.   I am once again in the middle of a 21-day meditation challenge; the fourth and final theme of the year is Abundance. This week, centering thoughts circulate around letting go of expectation and anticipation. 


I have been forcefully trying to arrange my life this past week.  To "get it together" I chastise myself, scouring Craigslist for housing in Los Angeles, applying for countless jobs online, writing friends and colleagues to let them know I'm available, that I am in need of a little work, knowing the seeds I'm planting are a little late in the season.  My last job of the year has been rescheduled to next April, and my end of year budget is tight.


I haven't had to send up a flare like that since Mountain View Apartment days, circa ’96, when all of the residents were out of work, behind on the rent and steeped in college loan and credit card debt. That, I silently say to Deepak's voice, is something to be thankful for.


I know I am just anxious. Trying to arrange things. Waiting for responses, hoping for a germination and forgetting that it is the end of the year, and the time for tying things up, and storing them away, making room for 2013.


I recently heard a report on NPR that 85% of resumes submitted online never get a response. Spiders crawl through submissions, picking out pertinent words that someone has keyed as necessary and important. If a resume doesn't have X number of those words, it gets auto-deleted.  It would be nice to be acknowledged; such as a form letter sent via Internet “Thank you for your application. You’re not qualified, etc.”  But this ether. This unknowing, this silent phone make it particularly difficult to obey Deepak’s mantra today.  


Maybe the silence is what I need right now.  “Be in the silence”, I will myself.

When the alarm went off on Thanksgiving morning, it was Tony Bennett I woke up to. "Life is a gift" an aging but familiar voice was crackling out. Half awake, I know the day is going to be filled with missives of gratitude starting with Morning Edition. I was not feeling this gratitude. I turned off the radio and opened my computer; bracing myself for the inbox cluttered with email blasts from various organizations I've donated to, an unoriginal choice of words ("thanksgiving" "giving thanks" or "gratitude") in the subject line.  Delete. Delete. Delete.


No doubt, I was grouchy. I am sick of making a gratitude list every day, and that this feeling of defiance should come on THE day of "THANKS"… well let's say the irony was not lost on me.


I brewed a pot of strong coffee, decided meditation would not work for me today, sweatered up and headed down to Lecount Hollow with Pepper, skeptical that his puppy poodle joy wouldn't be enough to change my attitude in time for dinner at Deb's later. The ocean hits the first sand break hard, broken buoys and clumps of seaweed litter the beach, signs of a storm. There is no land to see beyond where I stand. This is the edge of the world. I like that this is a jumping off point, a place where adventure is imminent and that these miles of protected shoreline are constantly changing, reflecting the order of a world in perpetual motion with unpredictable results.



For years, I try to live by the principle of staying present, keeping it simple.  When I’m cranky like today, sometimes this means adopting the simplest tactic of "Stop, look and listen" a jingle lodged in my brain directly from childhood, from Saturday Morning Cartoons and the animated PSAs that would run between Lucky Stars commercials and Batman.



Simple gratitude to me can be sheets on the bed and a ceiling over me. That morning, I wanted a hot bath in one of the Dorchester Hotel's deep marble tubs.  And that thought alone, the memory of my last trip to London, mysteriously caused my brain to shift gears to a Kentuckian who lent me a gentlemanly hand with my overhead luggage on the plane back from Maui last February, and the car Vanessa arranged to pick me up at the airport when she got a last minute gig, and couldn't come herself.


When I stop and look down, I see three sets of footprints on the beach with me, one hot-blooded soul who has shed their shoes, and another with treads and those of a bigger dog than Pepper. I can see their silhouettes by the wreckage of Marconi Station.  

I am not alone, I think and smile to myself. 

After dinner, my now antiquated LG phone beeps and Deb picks it up. We have the same one, and she says "It's yours", handing it over to me. There is a new email, and I glance at the subject line which states "Happy Thanksgiving". I quickly read through, and then stop and re-read it. The message overwhelms me, filling me with gratitude and awe.  

The universe has a way of turning things around.  It must be those constant revolutions around the sun, keeping us off kilter.






Saturday, November 10, 2012

In Wellfleet, the post season doesn’t mean watching your team sputter out in the pennant race, completely obliterating all chances for a World Series, (“I can’t watch the Sox”, wrote Matt Tibbi in Rolling Stone and I quite agreed). 

No, post season begins after the Main Street flood of 20,000 people, in town for the annual Oysterfest, have receded off-Cape to their homes.  PJ’s, The Beachcomber and Laughin’ Lobster mounted their “See You in April” signs late Saturday night, the same block letters that greeted me when I drove across the Bourne Bridge last April. By Monday October 15th, only 25% of the restaurants in town remain open and 90% of the homes will remain empty until June 2013.

Months have passed since I left and returned to the Cape. Summer feels like ages ago, a whole other person ago, as if August were the division between the old and New Year. For most of the month, I was living on the Karissa, a '70s Chris Craft houseboat, motors removed, sharing less than 75 feet with a man I have been involved with on and off for the past three years. I’ve managed to tell no one except my sister, and, with more vagueness than necessary, my mother. I didn't stay on the phone longer than five minutes with anyone. 

That this sometimes on, most times off again relationship flickered on again should surprise no one. I have been nothing short of reckless in matters of the heart since 1997, when, on an ill-fated evening, I hosted a dinner party and met a rotund, balding Texan and traded my good sense with a bad habit I just can’t seem to quit, like smoking and the New York Times crossword. 

What can I say? Steak on the grill, corn on the cob and my favorite ice cream in the freezer easily bamboozle me.  Except for a few day trips here and there, I was anchored to the marina, baking homemade granola, blending up green smoothies, half-heartedly doing yoga on the dock and undoing the mind body spirit routine I had established in Wellfleet. When I finally pulled out my favorite bright tangerine orange cords, they were tight around the ass. That’s what this trip to the moon on gossamer wings does to you. Widens the load. Takes up valuable space.

Two weeks into August, one of the librarians called to inform me that “… someone has, well, they’ve torn down your sign for housing and crumpled it up.  If you want to send another, I’d be happy to post it.” My ‘fleetian friend Karen later tells me to brush it off as “Augustitis”, a condition born from overly crowded markets, beaches and restaurants combined with surly impatience for the bloat to be gone.  I’ve since observed, however, that living in a community reliant on such a large seasonal populace is that when everyone “other” finally does leave, it feels as if you’re empty of breath, are strangely bewildered with the absence of energy, and a bit angry too – somewhat like a sugar crash, a symptom I was quite familiar with, especially after the seduction by homemade salted caramel ice cream and coffee in bed.

During my lie-in on the Karissa, I negotiated my lease, returning mid-September enthused, signing up for Beekeeping classes, outlining the film studies workshop I am conducting at the library for middle and high-schoolers, helping my neighbors cover the garden with sea hay until the spring and working with my friend Peter to organize volunteers for the Modern House Trust, and looking forward to the Wellfleet Oysterfest, the last big party of the year. 

Ray, the first familiar face I saw picked me up off the ground and said, "So you're back? For good!?" I said yes, but it is unlikely I will be able to stay here, notwithstanding the winter.  (“Quiet” is the common adjective I get from everyone I ask about the dark season). Putting down roots is a challenge. The Cassick Valley cottage is secured through June 30th until I join the “Wellfleet Shuffle”, due to the shortage of year round housing; unless you are lucky or well connected enough to find it.  For the rest of us, rent will double during the high season of July and August. Another setback is that these rentals are certain to be furnished by the AIM Thrift Store, the swap shop at the transfer station or IKEA,  making it difficult to decorate with things that allow you to call it “home”, or in my case, get out of storage.

This morning, I calculated that over the past five years I have spent, get ready for it, $15,000 on storage. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more, but that about sums it up. I hesitated before I multiplied five years times twelve months times the rental cost, recalling Brian’s advice as I was instructing his men on how I wanted the unit organized.  "You shouldn't be worrying about that.  You should be worrying about where you are going to be moving to next. And I would recommend that you find that place within a year.' "You're right.” I repeat this out loud a few more times, ingraining this knowledge into my psyche. I trusted Brian. He was a solid guy, had moved me twice already, from Silver Lake to Highland Park to Eagle Rock to Pasadena, the location of my first storage unit.
           
I’ve cross-referenced my ideal “life” list with Wellfleet, and it fulfills almost all of my requirements, (a community of intelligent, progressive, creative people, close to an airport, the ocean, volunteer opportunities, etc), except this one: gainful employment. 

The community is warm and welcoming, full of salty fishermen and artists. There are lots of gardeners, activists, writers, and painters.  It would be easy for me to have my own radio show, join a play reading group, get on the affordable housing committees, but I cannot even begin to think about rooting down here without buying a property and that is not feasible without a full time job, a rarity on the outermost Cape. And yes, I thought about filling out an application, but working the evening shift at the Mobile gas station is not something I want to do.

I’m also facing the hard reality that my dream of USC’s Graduate School program comes with an expensive price tag, no less than $40,000, of which I am ineligible for student aid, making it economically impractical for me to enroll without the guarantee of a job. In almost every state, open teaching positions are limited to Math, Science (even EXXON Mobil is promoting the president’s initiative) and Speech pathologists; which, strangely, I qualify for with my “Speech & Theatre” degree from Wagner College.

But I can’t reconcile working my way into the system by teaching ESL when the whole point of shifting gears mid - third career was to share the subjects I love to young minds taking flight into the world of post-high school.  So, I’ve joined the many who have banked their aspirations until a retirement wave of English and Theatre teachers begins.

At the end of this autumn, the trees fat with leaves quickly steeping to brown waiting for the right moment, the right gust of wind (apparently it wasn’t Sandy) to blow them all off at once, I've been told that I wander, but maybe I love too many places.  

A friend from California tells me “Come home, you’ve been gone too long.”

"It is confidence in our bodies, minds, and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn—which is what life is all about." —Oprah Winfrey

Monday, August 20, 2012

"I am grateful for everything in my life, knowing all is in perfect, divine order."


Deepak Chopra's Centering Thought of the Day my last morning in Wellfleet was a good swap for what I was feeling, which was regret. So it was gratitude I thought about during my morning walk on Lecount Hollow, the beach I've come to call mine, before I had to drive to New York in a few hours.

Rolling waves were falling against a soft, hazy backdrop, breaking between 12  - 15 seconds apart before finding the shore.   The glassy water made it difficult to distinguish seals from the surfers bobbing in their gleaming black wetsuits.  I felt bad that Sgt. Pepper wouldn’t be dodging the Park Rangers and sea gulls for who knew how long.  

I do have a lot to be grateful for. In fact, I would wager to say “a lot” is an understatement.  In the last four months, I’ve unearthed a goldmine of knowledge, about the future I want to create, what makes me happy and what it means to detach with grace. 

A few things that came to mind while I walked towards the Whitecrest embankment. 

1. The “Fact of the Day” scribbled on the dry erase board by the four teenagers who made up our squad of Life Guards.  Along with water temperature, shark sightings, and the levels of mung were quips like: "100 % of the people who don't smoke will die" or Joe likes popsicles more than ice cream sandwiches”. They never ceased to make me smile.

2. Rachel, the counter girl at Sweet and Savory Escapes who would wave and smile when I walked through the door, scooping a perfect ice cream cone for me, pretty much on a daily basis since Tracy and I first went there in May. I am a creature of habit, keeping my selections to Salted Caramel, Coffee, Deep Chocolate and Pomegranate Chocolate Chip. Sugar cone, of course.

3. Susanne at The Farm Gallery, for always remembering that I love Paul Scarbo Frawley's irreverent art and Asya Palatova's vocabulary teacups with words like “Ontology” and “Tango” delicately glazed in pastels.

Peter Scarbo FrawleyCorona typewriter on paper, 1970
4. Petra and Rolf at Eastham’s GLOW Yoga. They got me through the dark days of spring and into Bikram (a tiny bit). Special shout out to Rolf, who made me fall over with laughter during class when he, in tree pose, told us with a beatific smile, "We're all going to die, right, so let’s try to find the balance while we're here".

5. The Wellfleet librarians who always held recommendations for me, and unbeknownst to them, helped me realize a long ago New Year’s resolution to borrow instead of buying books.

6. Genevieve, of Truro Yoga, a student of one of my favorite teachers, Shiva Rae, who leads a 90 minute+ classes which always began and ended with her infectious giggle and a sense that you were exactly where you needed to be.


7. The Mermaid at the Mermaid Grange, artist Julia Salinger, who, despite the stoic New England attitude surrounding her, piles up her silver hair and studs it with starfish and covers her arms and shoulders with body glitter. I always say one should sparkle!

At the Weidlinger House
8. Peter the architect’s staid sideman humor, original word jokes, and the world of modern architecture I never would have known existed. Hidden among overgrown pine trees and tucked away off the dirt roads on National Park lands are dozens of disused and neglected summer homes designed and once inhabited by Paul Weidlinger,  Jack Hall and many others.  I also appreciate that he left New York City for a quieter life, and because of his love for modernists, (“They were hopeful”), started the Cape Cod Modern House Trust, saving important architecture from falling away to the elements. Also by being an example of blending his career with two things he genuinely enjoyed.

9. Chatting with Joe McCaffery of Narrowland Pottery and the painter Paul Sugg  about the "Born Here/Wash Ashore" histories, and their penchant for soft serve cones despite their gruff, salty exteriors. 

10. Polly Burnell's sunny, positive attitude about everything, (“I think I’m a Buddhist” she confided in me, while at the same time eyeing a trio of aircraft approaching and finishing with “God, I hope those aren’t UFOs”.) A sister in Rickie Lee fandom.

11. The fried scallop roll (hold the roll) recommendation from the sullen counter girls at P.J’s. Like Savory’s ice cream, it became a staple for me. 

12. The plumpest, juiciest oysters on the half shell as well as the staggering amount of butter Chef Eric Jansen of Truro’s Blackfish uses on his bone-in rib eye entree. 

13. My neighbors Trisha and Richard, who made me feel so welcome, allowed me a spot in their garden, shared their harvest over long lunches that always began with a cup of hot coffee and warm milk and who are living the life I want when I am a septuagenarian, spending two months in Kauai during the winters, eating from their garden, creating art and being happy souls.


14. The light. The light. The light. 













Peter shared with me a ritual he created with his nieces to commemorate their summer vacation. The second to last day, everyone would write down what they loved and what they could have lived without, and then burning the folded slips of paper in a big beach bonfire. I have not said good-bye to the ocean, to the bay, to the librarians, or anyone, preferring to slip out of town quickly and quietly. 

I tear up thinking about my daily routine there. The lingering winter I witnessed blossoming into spring and the scents that it brought- lilac for May, peonies in June and roses heralding the quick arrival of a heated summer in July.

The traffic was beginning to come to a standstill where U.S. Route 6 narrows into two lanes, a cheerless reminder that while everyone is arriving for their vacation, I am leaving.  It gives a strange sensation, like I am going in the wrong direction.

The people I’ve come to know, Trisha, Polly, Joe, Paul and others, assured me that I will be back, giving quick hugs or pats on the shoulder with "You're part of Wellfleet now". 

That seems certain. 






Thursday, July 26, 2012

Last Days...


Surfing culture didn’t enter my consciousness until I saw the Beach Boys at the Iowa State Fairin 1975.  I wasn’t that cool of a seven year old - my sister and I were campaigning for the Bay City Rollers.   For the past decade or so, parking lots on the ocean beaches are filled with surfers, muscling between the sunbathers, riding the last of morning’s high tide waves. Out at Cahoon Hollow, the Beachcomber Bar and Grill’s summer line up includes Dick Dale later this month.

It is a gorgeous Sunday morning and I am uncharacteristically up at 8:30 AM and at the beach with coffee and puppy. As the climate has warmed, more and more bikers are sitting outside PB’s Bistro, sipping cappuccino in their spandex and helmets after completing the 22 mile Cape Cod Rail Trail.

I have really fallen in love with Wellfleet, and now I am regretting not renting through September or October. I had planned a Fuller Build to Sri Lanka in July, and truly hoped to be out of the country for at least a month. Unfortunately, that trip had to be rescheduled for next year and I find my last three weeks rushing forward. I can't remember what day it is, it always feels like Sunday and that I'm going to have to pack up and leave immediately.   The spike in energy hasn’t helped matters.


I thought that Memorial Day marked the start of summer, but I was mistaken. For sure, it all happens the week before 4th of July.  Traffic has slowed to a crawl, drivers turned surly, left turns near impossible to make, (unless before or after 10 PM, when P.J.’s has finally closed the take out window).

My friend Deb won’t even attempt Route 6 on a Sunday unless it’s after 9 PM. “Blue plates” she says, meaning the license plates of everyone hailing from other than MA, but specifically Connecticut.

The library has been consistently full, people answering their phones with full voice. I glance up at my tablemate, and we shake our heads, silently agreeing that these intruders are just plain rude.

Most of the locals I’ve met during the spring have gone into hiding, shopping early and getting home before the dinner crowd starts marching down Main Street in their khakis, plaid shirts and Lily Pulitzer dresses after the struggle to find parking. It has been interesting to be on this side of the street.

Summer folks emit a temporary entitlement over the town, knowing their money fuels an economy that all but dies during the off-season, accounting for more than 70% of the influx of income from July through September, which is the snarky retort you’re bound to hear if you even mention how dense the traffic is on Friday.

But all 21,000 residents, taxpaying and otherwise, have one thing in common.  They love the natural surroundings. Sure, you may hear a disparaging remark about Pres Hall, but in the same sentence, that same grumpy Gus will ask you if you saw last night’s full moon, or tell you about the two hummingbirds that return each year to a butterfly bush in the back yard. And they’ll smile and look wistfully away, thinking how lucky they are to be here.


Two older folks have parked their bikes at the end of the parking lot, and rest on the bench, another addition, recently perched on the edge of the sandy decline. “How long have you lived here” they ask me. I am just a seasonal renter I reply, but looking out at the Atlantic, the sandbars that have raised themselves in anticipation of beachcombers & sand castle makers. I think I might like to stay here. Why they ask?  Everyone I’ve spoken to that lives here loves it. And we all look out at to the edge of the world and the changing light.


Friday, June 15, 2012

The Virtue of a Rainy Day

Showers were promised the entire month of April, but with the exception of a Nor’ Easter that swept through, any chance of rain has blown over until a late spring deluge that didn’t stop for five days.  New England weather lives up to its reputation in its stubborn refusal to be definable at all.

Tomorrow, the parking lot will be rife with surfers in wetsuits, eager to ride the storm's aftermath, but this morning, the ocean is roiling, almost white with salt and waves breaking over each other. Within 100 yards, my basket is full of plastic caps from soda and water bottles.  The ocean has hiccupped a kind of shutter, square with rusty hinges and empty eyes, which I figure once kept it open by hooks hanging from a window sash somewhere. 

Pepper runs right at the waves but stops on a dime, just letting his paws get wet. I love a good rainy day, when the roof sounds like there are ten workers up there pounding nails and you know that when it’s over, the air will smell fresh and clean, but today, I think if I could stand the cold, I would walk right in and disappear like Pepper disappears against the sand.   This is the mood I wake up in.

This intemperate climate has me unsettled. I have been pacing the cottage, picking through almonds and sunflower seeds and the two pounds of Cadbury Milk Chocolate Easter Eggs my mother sent me, listening to Fresh Air, which repeats three times daily on the WCAI, the Cape Cod NPR station. I never thought I'd get sick of Terry Gross. 

SIDEBAR: 

Look at all these links about the goodness of Cadbury mini-eggs!
Candy is Awesome

Later in the day, I force myself to join my neighbor at the Senior Center's community garden. This will be good for me, I think. I need to get my hands in the dirt. Trisha has offered me seeds and a small space in her plot if I help with the watering and some of the maintenance. I will be here through the end of July, and she thinks peas, lettuces, kale, beans and beets will be good, but I will probably not get one of her watermelons or any eggplant.

The latter I can live without.  It is one of the few foods I don’t eat. Along with tunafish salad, large roe that pop open in your mouth, mortadella and for that matter, anything labeled "lunch meat".  We brave the chill and pull back the black plastic that has been protecting the soil over the winter months, mixing in mulch, seaweed and fertilizer.

I'm leaving town for some much welcomed work. Pepper will stay at the Ark Animal center next door.  Hopeful for a change in the weather, I am having him shaved down, which I will discover is not their forte. When I pick him up three days later, he looks he’s been given a buzz cut courtesy of a five year old. 

The threat of rain looms, greeting me on the other side as I emerge from Penn Station with a downpour. There is a bitterness that a chilly late spring rainstorm can send through your bones. (Oy! My kingdom for a bathtub!) This somber mood is fitting for the infamous location we are shooting at, an empty floor at the Manhattan Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island. "It's the last place you want to be sent on an insanity plea", a lawyer friend tells me.

Our final day on set, afternoon sunlight bursts through the dirty institutional windows. A few crew members take their bikes out of production trucks and ride home.  Back in the city, people have shucked their rain gear in favor of sandals.  You would have thought the streets were wet down for a movie shoot.  The ice cream cone I get at the Hagen Daaz counter just about melts in my hand. It is steamy inside the station but cold on the train.

I collect Pepper early in the morning and we drive out to Nauset Beach, where the Outermost House once stood.  The day is so glorious; I have tears in my eyes. Truly. 

Everyone on the beach greets each like old friends.  We are all giddy in soaking up the warmth of the sun.

As soon as we hear the waves, Pepper's ears pop up, alert. A smile breaks out on his face and I let him free. He tears towards the water. This is really the only time I see him smile, when he is by the beach. He can run around for hours. Me, I look for stones. Sometimes a color will strike me and I'll  pick those. Today, I choose perfect circles. 

When we finish our meet and greet with the other revelers, I spot a park ranger waiting at the top of the stairs.  I click Pepper's leash on him as we begin our ascent.  

"Are you going to ticket me?" I ask him.  He takes a few minutes to consider this question, maybe mulling over if I am being a wise ass or not.  I size him up. Young. Probably a rookie. He says, 

"It wasn't the leash that I noticed. It was that basket."  This little thing that I purchased at the AIM thrift store on Main Street for a quarter is now filled with my bounty of circle rocks.  "Really? It's so small" I say.  Now he probably is sure I'm giving him a hard time. 

"You may not realize this, but you're disturbing the marine life.  I'm going to let you pick two, and then you're going to have to toss the rest back." "Really?" I repeat.  I start hemming and hawing. It becomes a difficult decision.  “I don't like that I have to choose but I guess it isn’t Sophie's Choice, now is it?” I tell him when he begins to look impatient. He doesn’t get the reference, taking my basket and dumping the contents into the rose bushes lining the curb. 

"What did you do that for? I would have taken them down to the beach. " We both look down at the 60 + steps.  

"You may not realize this", he repeats, "but marine life is existent up here as well."   

"Are you saying that someday this will be shore line?" sweeping my arm around the parking lot. He doesn't want to discuss global warming with me.  "I'm not going to ticket you, but I am going to give you a warning".

We walk back to my car so that I can give him my I.D. I'm grateful that he didn't see my New York plates before making his decision. By time he has finished writing a very detailed citation, officially notated with numbered codes, many of the cars have left.  

He hands me the original and flips the carbon copy behind the pad.  "What about those?" I point out the tell tale blue bags of dog poop people have left in the now vacated parking spots.  "Isn't that littering?"

I should just go, but warning in hand, I don’t have anything to lose.

"Well, we haven't put out the garbage cans yet, so people don't have a place to dispose … " and his voice trails off.

 "Hmmmm." I nod my head.  "Uh huh."

As I get into my car, I look back at him.  "Maybe the park service could get on that sooner rather than later, don’t you think?”

A bit of spring fever has gotten into me. No doubt - I am smug and sassy.

A canopy has spread over Route 28 in the days I have been away. Oak trees have burst lime-kelly-clover-green leaves.  The scent of lilacs mingles with newly mown grass. Purple bearded iris and pink heather edge wooden fences, off setting the sea washed clapboard houses with shutters painted bright yellow, turquoise, and fuschia. The effect is stunning and I am reminded of e.e. cummings’s beautiful testament to spring: 

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Without a little rain… I think… we would have none of this. 




Sunday, June 03, 2012

Making Memories...Memorial Day Weekend


The energy started ramping in town up after lunch on Friday, and by 4:00 PM, it was palpable. 

Wooden sandwich board signs have been propped up along the traffic island, eye level with those waiting to turn left into downtown Wellfleet, with notices of the Wednesday Farmer's Market, the newly renovated Preservation Hall’s Annual Birdhouse Auction, the Flea Market’s boast of 300 vendors and an announcement of the Drive In's season opener: "Men In Black 3" with a "21 Jump Street" chaser. This is how I plan to spend Sunday night.

According to the town website, Wellfleet’s local population is 3,500, but that figure more than quadruples during the summer, starting Memorial Day weekend. This is when many of the second home residents begin their return, putting in their annual flower beds, washing down the lawn furniture, and locking in their lucrative rentals for July, and perhaps August.

The town grocery has extended its hours from 7 to 7, shelves have been stocked with Annie’s Organic products and the current New York Times best seller list, with multiple copies of Fifty Shades of Grey.   

As if to catch the wave, the owner of The Juice hurriedly posted an “Opening at 5:30 Today” proclamation as I was driving by.   At our own beach, Lecount Hollow, a little booth has been plopped down in the middle of the night, straddling the parking lot, waiting to check beach passes once we pass into June.

From the Lobster Claw in Orleans to Russ & Marie’s Marconi Beach BBQ to Moby Dick’s on the north edge of town, the restaurants on Route 6 have been scrubbed down, without a smidgen of dust lurking anywhere among the seaside décor of old bottles, nets, buoys and antique fishing lures. Tables and benches are thick with aqua paint and coats of lacquer; floors are polished to a high sheen.

Shiny menus mirror the usual seaside summer fare of fried clams, scallops, little necks, steamers and Wellfleet oysters.  The parking lots are packed at Mac’s Sushi, Winslow’s Tavern and the Pearl Bistro (sporting its newly restored “e”).  A line snakes around the front of the Bookstore Café.  A clamber of voices and live music wafts through the open windows,

Locals dread this time of year, and it’s easy to see why. All of the street parking is taken, sidewalks are full, the summer folk arrive, feeling entitled and the locals feel pushed out. To emphasize my point - the regulars’ plastic white chairs outside the package store have been removed.

My movie friend has offered to pick up lobster rolls & sweet potato fries from P.J.'s, waiting patiently among the crowd.  The take out counter has been mobbed three people deep all weekend.  

Your people are encroaching the parking lot at P.J’s” he tells me when we meet in the parking lot of the South Wellfleet Post Office. I remind him that he was a summer boy himself before settling in to a family home seven years ago. 


It's hard to go to a Drive in and have a bad time.  Case in point: the Century Twin, Inglewood, California, 1997 where I rediscovered 5th Avenue candy bars and fell in love with “Con Air” (and a Texan to boot), but sadly, this weekend's debut offering disappoints dramatically. 

It may have been that the large screen magnified both the absurdity of Tommy Lee Jones’ facial work and Jonah Hill’s character arc, (finding the courage to fire a gun at a perp, which he does following a Depp/DeLuise cameo where they die a slow, painfully written death).

It may have been that sweet potato fries get cold quickly, and by the time we decided on popcorn, the concession stand was closed.

But it is more likely that the experience did not live up to the last time I was in this same parking lot, thirty years ago, for the double feature of "The Blues Brothers" and "Poltergeist". My father spent most of the first movie awkwardly explaining the "adult" humor to my younger brother while, at 15, my friend Christine and I snuck Merits and tried to look super cool on the roof of my Aunt Ellen's primer black Camero.

On Monday, I walked through the Snow Cemetery in Truro. Plenty of old outer cape families are buried here, members of the Paines, Hatches, and Newcombs, names I recognize from beaches, roads and landmarks named for them.

Someone from The American Legion has marked Veteran’s graves with tiny flags and plastic medallions, most from the Civil War. It occurs to me that I don’t know where my relatives are buried or if anyone is tending to their graves. I only know that the last of my father’s ashes were released on Boxing Day, 2007, at Race Point, here on the tip of Cape. 

For Pep's last walk of the day, we head to our local. Splashes of sand pool through the parking lot of Lecount, evidence of the towels and coolers that were shaken out before loaded into trunks.  It is just before sunset, and straggling bathers are leaving, having waited until the last moment, and taking with them memories of the first weekend of summer before braving the traffic on Route 6.

I’ve been in that car before, the crisp feeling of sun burnt skin on part of the body that the lotion didn’t find, the sand you’ll see wash down the drain and the rolling dreams you'll have that night, of the waves you were in that afternoon.

The beach has been positively trampled, littered with footprints, paw prints, pieces of coal, disjointed and discarded grape stems, orange peels, another Mylar balloon careening back and forth from its entrapment on the shore line, and the inevitable size four pair of children’s Crocs, left, as if to make a statement, so obviously by the path.

Hundreds of scents pique Pepper’s nose. He doesn’t know where to mark his territory. Usually he is headlong towards the water racing up and down and chasing any stone I throw to him, but he is zig zagging back and forth back and forth like he’s had too much chocolate.  There was plenty of his kind here today too. I cannot smell anything, not summer, not even the ocean.
  
My sense of territory and smell is off, probably like Pepper feels.  The sudden emptying out of the town has made me tired, and I get under the covers to settle into a marathon session of GIRLS and wishing I had a bathtub and radiator to tie my laptop to. 

Saturday, May 05, 2012

Anticipation...


The parking lot at Ballston Beach is wide open but for one truck.  Sand spills out onto the pavement. Tiny laminated signs are stapled to fencing, poking up through the dunes, pleading with walkers to protect the fragile grass and monarch butterflies.

The timpani of the ocean on the other side quickens my pace over the windswept path to the great horizon, outlined by the changing turbulent color of the sea.  It is a vast and amazing site that never ceases to stun me with gratitude. 

I have not been on this beach since I was a young teenager. We loved the surf here, higher than any we had ever jumped around in before, toes grazing the ocean floor while the swell carried you high and deposited you three feet from your spot, pre-boogie board style.

The water remained about a foot high during the low tides, and we would lie down on your belly closer to shore, leaning on elbows or crawl out, catching the waves as they rumbled in, rolling down through the dips in the ocean floor every six feet or so, causing a diminishing effect before breaking up entirely on the shore line. 

The serenity of the solitary shore was a siren’s call to which the ocean responded moodily.  High tide was four hours away, but waves were tumbling in with the tide, faster and more ferocious than on other parts of the National Seashore.  This is what made Ballston one of our favorites, the unpredictable Mother Nature, the reason our parents warned us before going into the water “Respect the ocean… and watch the undertow”.

It was on this beach that the ancestors of these waves carried my brother Phil away.  He was just eight years old that June, the youngest in the crowd of children packed into the Volvo.  When we finally heard my sister say, “Where’s Phil?” my friend stood up from our little tidal pool, shaded her eyes and pointed out towards the sun.  His head was bobbing out there. Way, way out there. We cupped our hands together and yelled his name, but I don’t think he would have been able to hear us.

My older brother Frank and his friend Paul orchestrated a rescue, first running in the water as fast as they could and then hurling themselves into the swells, badly butterflying their way towards Phil. I think Mark Spitz was still quite popular then, as was his signature stroke.

It was low tide after all, but getting past that first round of waves was a heroic feat. After that, the three of them walked in to shore where we stood in a line watching. Our family friend, aptly named BIG JIM for his enormous size, puffed on his Newport 100s nervously and shouted at all of us. No one was exempt.   Big Jim & Mary were old family friends visiting us from Harrisburg, PA.  I don’t know how Jim drew the short straw, but he was here, looking after all of us on his own. We were nine children total, ranging in age from 8 to 16. 

For his own four, it was their first time ever to the ocean. By the time Frank, Paul and Phil hit beach, Jim shouted, “Don’t you ever do that again! Ever!” his voice boomed out, and he practically hurled us toward the car. Afternoon over.

That night, the four adults stood admonishing us, Jim with the threat of his belt, stomping up and down the stairs to show us just how upset he was. "I’m going to get the belt if that EVER happens again". At some point, my mother and Mary started laughing, covered their mouths, and slunk into the kitchen, leaving us kids crowded on the beaten up couch with my father and Jim pointing fingers, sweating and threatening “The Belt”.

At breakfast the next day, my mother sternly said to anyone who was in listening distance, “You will not take your eyes off of your father or Big Jim. You will not go out over your waist. You will hold on to your younger brother’s hand”.

But despite these explicit instructions and the threat of Jim’s enormous belt, Philip was swept out again.  That was the last time we came to Ballston… ever. 

I'm trying to remember where exactly we were, where the blanket and cooler of Schlitz was laid out, but it was over thirty years ago, and I cannot recall the spot. I only remember seeing Phil's head and his little hand waving at us, off on his seaward adventure.

There is no treasure to be found today, with the exception of a broken piece of a brown Labatt’s bottle and the shell of a Mylar balloon. The glass I toss back into the ocean. It is not soft and sanded down enough for a proper sea glass find. There, by the balloon trapped in the sand, small footprints lead off the beach, towards the high house on the northern side of the parking lot. A small voice is tossed down by the breeze as if to match the prints.

The beach is almost naked. No footprints save the child’s, no rocks, stones or shells either, just soft warm sand and high cliffs sheltering nesting plovers who quickly fly back and forth over the water, darting into invisible habitats. 

On the highest cliff, men are taking off the shutters of a house facing the southeast. It is the last week of April, and people are starting to open their houses for the summer. Restaurants, hotels, cabins, campgrounds and shops are all prepping for May 1st, with new coats of paint and annuals spilling out of wine cask planters. 

May, I believe, marks the beginning of the season. The temperature has dropped again to 50 degrees, but the sun belies the cold front, and the light has changed accordingly to an early summer sky, with a twilight stretching out past the eight o’clock hour. 

The depressions in the beach had changed during our walk, and natural berms were beginning to catch the tail end of the white foam before it stripped back to the sea.  The clouds were like a cartoon train has puffed them out.   You're always on a curve on the ocean side of Cape Cod, there is a mystery around the corner, and each beach is different, has it's own personality.

Shameless Crushes...

find life experiences and swallow them whole.
travel.
meet many people.
go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys.
try everything.
exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life.
-lawrence k. fish

Yoga For Peace

read much and often

Cleopatra: A Life
Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Never Let Me Go
The Angel's game
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Bel-Ami
Dreaming in French: A Novel
The Post-Birthday World
A Passage to India
The Time Traveler's wife
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Catcher in the Rye
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Kite Runner
Eat, Pray, Love
Slaughterhouse-Five
Les Misérables
The Lovely Bones
1984
Memoirs of a Geisha


read much and often»