One evening on our Cape Cod trip we went to Race Point Beach in Provincetown to see the sunset. It felt so good to be outside in the salty air, walking on the sand.
I will never forget this trip to Cape Cod with my dearly loved husband of 40+ years. Until 2008 we used to come here all the time – summer vacations and weekend getaways. Sadly, Tim’s grandparents’ house in Provincetown was sold that year and my grandparents’ house in Dennis Port was sold in 2009. Our last trip, to bury my father’s ashes in October 2013, was all too brief.
We did, however, go to Provincetown in May 2009 to celebrate our anniversary and stayed at a bed and breakfast called The Black Pearl. It’s no longer there, we discovered, the house now owned by someone else. We took a long walk on Beech Forest Trail. Six long years since that visit. The town and the seashore have changed. So have we. But we still found healing there, and peace. I think it will always be a place where we will free to be ourselves in times of transition. It will always feel like home.
The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,
it can lie down like silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward; it can give
gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,
and so, no doubt, can you, and you.
~ Mary Oliver
(A Thousand Mornings)
Beautiful, beautiful. The photos, the reminiscing, and the poem by Mary Oliver. Sea can do craziness, and so can we humans! Hope your guy is feeling better.
Thanks, Pam! We just never know what the sea or we humans or life will toss around next. Tim’s finally not getting any worse – it was awful for a few mornings there, each day the shingles rash was spreading and we had no idea when it would ever stop!
Even places that seem like they never will never change do. Your pictures and words wonderfully convey the bittersweet nature of how it feels to go back to familiar places. There are both good memories and sad memories.
In a way, places can be like our bodies – the atoms are replaced and rearranged, yet our selves remain, changed. We age, yet our spirit is renewed. Part of us no longer exists, yet here we are, part of the endless flow of life. It is bittersweet…
cool views and sweet, sweet poetry, enjoyed……houses are so different here, the modern ones mostly in red brick and cement render and the old ones often in tudor style with render, gables and bay windows
That’s what struck me when we were in Germany visiting Tim’s brother, all the houses were made of cement. Some of the much older ones were half-timbered. But when we got to Norway the houses were wooden, like the ones we have here in New England. It’s amazing what you notice when traveling. I’d love to visit England some day.
Bittersweet is also the word that came to my mind. The photos are beautiful. How wonderful you two made the trip.
Thank you, Susan. Stevie Nicks’ lyrics from “Landslide” keep going through my mind these days:
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well, I’ve been afraid of changing…
Beautiful and bittersweet–somehow even the photos have a wistful feeling.
Thank you, Merril. That wistful feeling seemed to be with us for the whole trip.
Beautiful photos!! I love the first picture that reveals just a hint of the glory behind the dunes. And the sky after sunset is gorgeous!
Thank you for your kind words, Tiny! These photos are helping me remember this wonderful sunset and ending to a lovely day…
How absolutely beautiful! It’s more than the gorgeous photos though, it’s the feelings and the history you have with this area that sooth the soul whilst reading. A really lovely post, Barbara. 🙂
Thank you so much, Joanne! Our visit was such a tonic after all the health problems Tim had this year and now the memories of it are keeping me sane as we navigate the shingles crisis that followed…