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 4^th 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.