Slim was more than excited to learn that Trunk or Treat at our church was back on this year, after being Covid-canceled in 2020.
He jumped for joy when he heard that our daughter would be returning from Maryland for Halloween weekend. He hadn’t seen her since he popped in on her unexpectedly in Charlottesville in 2018 for Trick or Treating on the Lawn. (See here and here.) On a beautiful Saturday, with perfect fall weather, D joined Slim, me and the pack in the church parking lot, to greet and provide candy fuel to a large and enthusiastic crowd of happy, creatively-costumed kids and their families. After so much isolation during the darkest days of the pandemic, the gathering was especially cheery. The rousing music provided by our church pianist from a keyboard in the back of his pick-up truck served to further heighten the mood. Slim sang along with every tune, as his musical reportoire is vast.
On the ride home, he was simply giddy. I repeatedly had to remind my rowdy passenger to remain seated. He waved eagerly at passing cars and emitted celebratory whoops, hoots and hollers. He belted out a steady stream of snippets from his favorite party songs: Cel-e-brate good times, come on! . . . Let’s paint the town! And shut it down! . . .We’re gonna party like it’s 1999! . . I got me a car, it seats about twenty, so come on and bring your jukebox money! . . .Well, I’m just out of school, like a real, real cool. Gotta dance like a fool, Got the message that I’ve gotta be a wild one, Oh yeah, I’m a wild one. . .
Yes, that Slim, he’s a wild one. But his is a sweet, innocent wildness, like that of a child. And his humor is infectious; he can bring a smile to even the dourest of faces. I’m glad he’s here. Everyone needs a friend like Slim.
Once home, he whistled for the pack to join him in the annual Halloween joyride. The gang piled into my VW in a flash. Even Kiko moved briskly, which is unusual for our elder statesman these days. Time to cruise the neighborhood to promote more Halloween fun! The big day approached!
Our old family friend, Slim, emerged from his state of semi-hibernation in early October, as is his custom. After eleven months in the dim silence of my mother’s basement, he was a bit taken aback by the bright warmth of the autumn sunshine and the profusion of life that was bursting forth outdoors.
Quite the nature lover, Slim was amazed at the continued proliferation and abundance of our summer flowers. “Is it July?,” he exclaimed. Usually long gone by October, this year the impatiens have kept flourishing, and growing, their stems over three feet in height. They almost completely hide the fountain, providing a sheltering hedge for a pair of frogs who claimed it as a homestead. The frogs grew steadily and serenaded one another loudly for months. Now they watch over a bevy of tadpoles. Their well-being in the face of approaching cold weather has been worrisome for Slim. Because the fountain must be drained before temps dip to freezing, he has vowed to help us relocate our amphibian friends to the nearby creek.
On sunny afternoons, Slim could often be found soaking up the rays alongside the opulent petunias on Mama’s back deck. Loyal canine twins Rocky and Ruth were usually by his side.
Slim delights in the charms of seasonal decor. He put the finishing touches on the Halloween display around my most recently constructed dollhouse, placing a couple of tiny Sculpey-clay jack-o’-lanterns just so. He has a heart for little things as well as little critters, and no detail is too insignificant to escape his observant eye.
After Slim amped up the festive decorations on my mother’s kitchen table, it became one his favorite inside spots, for sitting, chatting, and watching the many birds at the feeder. He noticed before I did that the slate-colored juncos had returned. He offered helpful tips as I worked at a recent endeavor: trying to make iced sugar cookies that are decorative as well as tasty. With his assistance, my efforts improved. It shouldn’t have surprised me in the least to learn that he has a deft hand with a pastry bag.
Every night, Slim assumes a post at a front window, looking out on the neighborhood until drifting off to sleep and to sweet Halloween dreams. Seeing him there as I pass my mother’s house on Kiko’s last walk of the evening, I’m reminded of Riff Raff peering out of that upper window in Rocky Horror Picture Show, and his words echo in my head:
There’s a light. . .over at the Frankenstein place.
There’s a light. . . light. . .in the darkness of everybody’s life.
In one of my longer Provincetown walks this summer, I got as far as the hilltop apex of Bradford Street, where the tall, narrow Gothic revival cottages above are located. With their sharply peaked roof lines, the structures could well be the home of friendly witches in a children’s book. The neat, enclosing hedge and abundant plantings further enhance the compound’s charming storybook aspect. Built by a sea captain in 1850, and home to several artists over the years, the cottages are now owned by a local art and antiques dealer.
The view toward the bay from the upper windows of the buildings above must be spectacular. I took this photo from just across Bradford Street, at the edge of a precipitous drop.
Flamboyant orange tiger lilies stand out against the weathered shingles of another hilltop Bradford Street home.
Back on Commercial Street, near the heart of town, is the elegant wedding cake building above. At the time of its construction in 1860 as the Center Methodist Episcopal Church, it was purported to be the largest Methodist church in the United States. Its original, emphatically tall steeple was removed after it was damaged in the severe winter storm of 1898. Since then, the arched belfry alone has topped the building. Once the congregation left for a newer, more easily manageable building in 1958, the church became home, for about a decade, to the Chrysler Museum, and later, to the Provincetown Heritage Museum. Following an extensive renovation, completed in 2011, the building now serves as the town’s Public Library.
The building’s light-filled interior is well worth a look. It’s high-ceilinged upper floor still contains a sixty-six foot long, half-scale model of the Provincetown schooner, the Rose Dorothea, winner of the 1907 Lipton Cup Fishermen’s Race. The model, completed in 1988, by a group of volunteers led by Francis “Flyer” Santos, is a tribute to the long tradition of New England shipbuilding and to the intrepid fishermen of Provincetown.
The library, with its large windows, is a lovely place from which to survey the surrounding town. Above, we look across Center Street to the home built around 1870 as the parsonage of the Methodist Church. The current owner is the proprietor of Provincetown’s Shop Therapy, which bills itself as a “world famous alternative lifestyle emporium.” The wild spirit of the sculpture garden that surrounds the house is similar to that expressed in the brightly colored murals that adorn the facade of Shop Therapy. The Pilgrim Monument rises in the background.
This view above shows Commercial Street shops, the harbor, pier and breakwater.
I like to walk the town’s short lanes that connect Commercial and Bradford streets. They offer unique perspectives on enclosed gardens and quiet enclaves mere steps away from the tourist crowd.
Town Hall, as seen from Commercial Street.
Provincetown’s government center is Town Hall, built in 1886 and situated at the very midpoint of the town. Every registered, resident voter is a member of the town’s legislative body. Town Meetings, as well as concerts and special events, take place here in the capacious auditorium. The Victorian building underwent a massive renovation, completed in 2010, after portions of it were deemed structurally unsound. The current green and white color scheme mimics the original palette.
A side view of Town Hall, from Ryder Street.
Following the sale of the Center Methodist Church, the congregation built their new home on Shank Painter Road, a bit removed from the town center. The spare Modernist building opened in 1960. The sanctuary, with steeply sloping redwood walls, resembles the upturned hull of a boat. Provincetown United Methodist Church is a vital hub of community life. In addition to Sunday worship, the congregation runs a Thrift Shop and Soup Kitchen. The church hosts a number of twelve-step groups and serves as a rehearsal space for some theater groups. Our family has been attending worship there once every summer for many years. It has become our church home away from home. We looked forward to being back in the company of the small, welcoming congregation, to an uplifting sermon by the Reverend Jim Cox and to a moving anthem by the delightful “Joyful Noise Choir.” When we arrived on our annual Sunday morning in August 2019, we were surprised, and somewhat alarmed, to see that Reverend Jim was not there. A guest minister presided. Toward the end of the service, she seemed to be stalling for time. Before long, Rev. Jim was proceeding slowly up the center aisle. Gravely ill, he’d come to say goodbye. He died just over a month later. We’re grateful that we could be among the flock that day, to thank him for being such a source of kindness, wisdom and good cheer, for walking the walk of faith and love of neighbor in all circumstances. Appropriately, his Celebration of Life included a New Orleans-style brass band “Second-Line Procession” from Town Hall to the Church.
The Delta surge of Covid prevented us from attending church this year in Provincetown. As of June, the pastor is Edgar Miranda. God willing, we’ll meet him next year.
This large Bradford Street residence, built in the 1870s, stands out for its dramatically peaked gable roof and Stick Style ornamentation. It was home to a succession of artists and merchants before opening its doors to paying guests. Currently operated as Stowaway Guesthouse, its pleasant rooms are brightly painted, and the spacious grounds are lushly landscaped. It’s one of Provincetown’s many inviting, privately run inns.
On every return walk to Truro, I pause again to look back toward Provincetown. The familiar elements are there: the white house, the bay, the curve of the town. When the distinctive features of the Provincetown skyline, such as the Pilgrim Monument, the towers of the Library, Town Hall and the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, are visible, it calls to mind a decorative miniature village in a model train display. On cloudy days, the buildings blur together into a vague impression, a palette knife rendering in tones of gray and white. Sometimes, as in the view from our cottage in Truro, dense fog obscures the town altogether, and the white house could be perched at the very edge of the world. At low tide, the home looks out to a vast, low basin of sand. At high tide, the waters of the bay seem to lap at the base of the porch. The view is never the same, yet always the same. I find this somehow comforting. I know it will be there waiting for me next year. And it reminds me that even in the most mundane of life’s daily routines, there lies the potential for endless variety, for boundless possibility.
I didn’t make it to Provincetown’s far West End this summer. I’ll save that part of the tour for next year.
Back in the Covid summer of 2020, it seemed reasonable to hope that in a year, a visit to the Cape would no longer involve considerable pandemic restrictions for the vaccinated. But that was well before the rise of the Delta variant and Provincetown’s post-July 4th surge in breakthrough infections. Therefore, many of our favorite activities–dining inside at restaurants, seeing musical and comedy shows, singing in a packed crowd of strangers around Bobby Wetherbee’s piano at the Crown & Anchor–remained off limits. There would be no festive Ptown nightlife for us this time, sadly. We didn’t, and still don’t, want to take risks that could bring the virus back to my mother. But walking through town in the early mornings, when the streets are nearly empty, seemed safe. I don’t always walk down Shore Road further into Truro. Sometimes I head in the opposite direction, and before long, I’m in Provincetown.
In terms of actual area, Provincetown is a small place. Its narrow, curving peninsula occupies about seventeen and half square miles. But surrounded on three sides by water, and with the vast, ever-changing sky above, it seems much larger. The year-round population is less than 3,500, but it swells to about 60,000 in the summer. The town’s spirit, too, like its capacity to receive guests, is generous, expansive, and welcoming.
Provincetown’s colorful present is matched by a colorful past; there’s a lot of history here. The original residents were the Nauset tribe, who interacted with the Pilgrims not long after they arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. The Nauset, and their neighbors the Wampanoag, like many of the Europeans who followed, valued the area and its deep, protected harbor, primarily for its excellent fishing. The Pilgrims moved on in two months to Plymouth, but the colony continued to rely heavily on fish from its waters. The town was a prominent whaling center for nearly two hundred years. Provincetown whaling ships sailed as far as the Azore Islands, where Portugese sailors often joined the crews. By the 1860s, Provincetown was home to a substantial, and growing, Portugese community. The railroad made the remote village more accessible in the 1870s, and the area’s great natural beauty began attracting tourists and artists. The first of many art schools opened in 1899. By the early twentieth century, Provincetown had become a destination for writers and theater people, as well as visual artists. In the summer of 1916, the Provincetown Players gave the first-ever performance of a play by the young Eugene O’Neil. When Tennessee Williams arrived in 1940, a gay community was already flourishing. In the 50s and early 60s, attempts were made to shutter gay-themed entertainment spots. These efforts failed. Today, Provincetown welcomes everyone. It’s a big-hearted, good-humored, judgment-free zone, a place where no one is a misfit, where no one is friendless for long.
And it’s a beautiful place. In the quiet early morning, it’s especially easy to appreciate the town’s charming architecture and gardens, and to catch near-hidden glimpses of the bay between buildings. On my walk from Truro, I usually pause at a wooden stairway leading to the beach, where I take in the view above. The big white house at far right, with the bay and the curve of the town behind it, is one of the most frequently painted and photographed scenes on the entire Cape. A Colonial Revival built in 1917, the house is situated near the division of Route 6A into the town’s two main streets, Commercial and Bradford. It’s at this point that Provincetown starts to look and feel like a real town, rather than a sparse collection of homes along the water’s edge. All the buildings in this post are situated along Commercial Street.
Provincetown has the typical resort town’s share of tee shirt and knick-knack shops. But even most of these are enclosed in architecturally charming exteriors, and clustered primarily in the busy central section. After passing the white Colonial house, I’m in the largely residential East End, a contrast to the touristy bustle of the town center. The front yard pocket gardens along this peaceful stretch of Commercial Street are often color-coordinated and carefully tended. They offer proof that small, thoughtfully planted spaces can pack an outsized visual punch. Many art galleries are mixed in among the East End homes.
Originally the Eastern School, the towered structure above, like many historic Provincetown buildings, has seen several uses. It’s currently the home of art galleries and WOMR-FM (Outermost Community Radio).
Teeny tiny Iota Cottage, above, got its name from a former owner, Jonathan “Jot” Small, who somehow managed to run a restaurant here in the 1930s.
A few homes, like this one on the land side of Commercial Street, stand out for their luxuriously expansive lawns, rare in beach communities.
I find it hard to imagine a more pleasant low-key approach to the water than this narrow, rose-bordered sandy lane.
Small blue plaques on many Provincetown buildings indicate points of historical importance and associations with well-known people. The house above was the home of Donald MacMillan (1874-1970), for whom MacMillan Wharf, in the town center, is named. The influential Arctic explorer, scientist, sailor and teacher lived here as an adult; he was born a few doors down on Commercial Street.
The current owners clearly delight in their unique and historic home. I often notice what appears to be a dog puppet perched, as though to welcome guests and greet passersby, in the upper, open half of the Dutch door. I see this happy puppet, accompanied by seasonal decorations, as a manifestation of Provincetown’s jovial, quirky hospitality. Look closely, and you’ll see similar expressions all over town. It’s just that kind of place.
Check back next week, as the Provincetown tour continues into the center of town and out onto Bradford Street.
After a two-year absence, I was eager to get back to my early morning walks along Shore Road in Truro this August. The section that we’d seen upon arrival appeared largely unchanged, much to our relief. As I’ve written previously, it’s this persistent sameness, this enduring sense of place, that our family has come to treasure so dearly.
This view is from Route 6A looking across Route 6 to a sliver of Pilgrim Lake.
My first Shore Road walk this summer reassured me that my favorite ribbon of land was much as I remembered it. No unexpected new structures intruded. Stretches of semi-wild landscape patches remained between buildings. Hearty, low-growing roses and juniper continued to thrive along the fence rows.
As hoped for, as anticipated, the familiar elements, like old buddies, were there: the glorious Cape hydrangeas that flourish in the salty sea air. . .
. . .the simple white cottages of Pilgrim Colony, grouped around a neatly manicured central green. . .
. . .and the tidy, picturesque homes of Bay Colony, set off from the road by a white picket fence and a thick hedge of well-tended roses.
Days Cottages, those identical little white boxes set in a long line, looked exactly the same. Each tiny, green-shuttered house bears the name of a flower: Bluebell, Peony, Dahlia. They’ve changed very little since they were built, beginning in 1931. The land is particularly narrow here, so that at high tide, the bay is but a few short steps from the front of each cottage, and Shore Road a few steps from the back.
Several years ago, the Days family sold off the last of the units to individual buyers and retired to Florida. The exceptionally well-stocked grocery/news stand/all-purpose beach store associated with the cottages was closed and shuttered during our visit in 2018. We feared it would be razed and the land developed. Instead, it was sold to a new family, who runs it as Days Market and Deli. An upscale specialty grocery and cafe, it’s a popular spot for coffee, pastries, soups and lobster rolls.
The threat of big change on Shore Road was satisfactorily averted.
My favorite homes continued to endure, like this weathered Victorian cottage, with its yellow shutters and white gingerbread trim. On a somewhat overcast day, a solitary mourning dove sat on the telephone line out front.
This pair of very similar Dutch Colonial houses appeared just as I remembered them. They sit close together on a bit of high ground, with few other structures nearby. Like Days Cottages, they’re a frequent subject for Cape artists.
The most significant transformation along Shore road was one that had been long anticipated, and therefore didn’t seem especially dramatic. On the site of the old motel that sat empty and decaying for over twenty years, two sizable, but not overly large residences are nearing completion. For photos of the property as nature took its course in years past, as well as other Shore Road locales, see my posts from 2012 and 2013.
Most other changes on Shore Road involved the gradual yielding of the built environment to nature’s determined advances. For as long as I can remember, the expansive lot above has been occupied by a single small, gradually deteriorating cottage and several decorative birdhouses. See That Satisfying Sameness on Shore Road, September 18, 2018. There were some years when considerable effort had been made to keep the ever-encroaching foliage at bay. This August, nature was winning. The grape vines along the remains of the old fence were wild and thick, the grass was tall, and only a couple of birdhouses remained. The little building was more dilapidated than ever, but its sailboat weather vane still protruded at an angle from the corner of the roof line.
Before long, only the cupola and weather vane of this small cottage may be visible above the growing tangle of plant life. The building, like a humble Sleeping Beauty cabin, has been in slow decline for two decades.
The small structure above, along with the picnic table, has occupied an otherwise empty lot for many years. This summer, there was one minor modification to the building. It received a hand-painted sign bearing an identifying label, or perhaps a name: SHED. On Shore Road, my comfortable, beloved old friend, that’s the kind of subtle change I can support and appreciate.
Our family’s long-time summer destination sits on the skinny finger of land between Cape Cod Bay and Route 6A, or Shore Road. When seen from the water, the small cottages appear to be nestled between the sea grass and a low hill of dunes that rises along the banks of Pilgrim Lake.
As the aerial photo above shows, the complex resembles a miniature village. The look is classic Old Cape Cod. Basic, simple, absolutely without pretense. On each side of the central pool, two rows of white cottages, built in the 1940s, face a grassy, rectangular courtyard. Six additional cottages are covered in weathered cedar shakes. Constructed in the 80s, these are off the greens, clustered in the sand. In the broad expanse that leads to the water are two narrow boardwalks and a fire pit enclosed by a semi-circle of sturdy wooden chairs. The wide beach, unusual for the area, has grown much bigger over the years. When the colony was new, the high tide mark reached all the way up to the line where the beach grass begins now. It would seem that every bit of sand that’s continually swept away from the rest of waterfront Truro is being deposited here.
A trellis-topped archway and white picket fence mark the entrance to one of the greens.
The cottages farthest from the water have the benefit of being surrounded on all sides by a grassy lawn planted with bountiful hydrangeas.
The photo above shows the cottage that my family will probably always think of as “Grandma and Grandpa’s place.” It’s the one that my husband remembers as the vacation home from his childhood, beginning in the 1970s. His parents last occupied it in 2018. Sadly, that visit made it clear that their health issues had become too daunting to make the trip worthwhile.
There are several models of the white cottages. Those across each green are mirror images of one other.
The cedar-shingled cottage above is the one our family returns to in early August. It sits just in front and to the side of H’s parents’ old place.
A sandy lane separates this row of cottages from the pool. There are no paved roads in our summer village.
Just as I often expect to see my husband’s parents planted in their beach chairs every time I approach their old cottage, I can’t go to the pool without recalling the way our daughter, as a baby, delighted in the glistening, chilly water. The photo above shows her with my husband in 2001, on her very first visit to the Cape.
Nearly every spot in our pleasant village conjures an image of our daughter as she has been, over the years. I can see her at two and a half, sitting happily outside our cottage, talking to herself while pouring sand into a cup.
I remember her as a little girl, pausing on a sandy path leading to the water, a wistful expression on her face.
I see her as a young teenager, the summer before she began middle school.
All the while, I see and give thanks for the strong, compassionate, intelligent young woman she has become. Here she is this August with Dozer, one of the owner’s dogs.
As our daughter has grown, and as my husband and I have simply aged, our summer village has changed only minimally. Here in this timeless place, more than anywhere else, I hold simultaneously in my mind’s eye the various stages of our family’s life. With our every return to this sliver of sandy ground that floats serenely between sea and sky, I feel what it means to be young, to be old, and everything in between, and even beyond. The day will come when H and I, like Grandma and Grandpa, no longer make the trip. Will there be a time when our daughter gazes at the sunset over the Cape while watching her own child contentedly pouring sand into a cup? I think I can see that, too.
Last summer, the pandemic interfered with our annual trip to Cape Cod. For the first time in twenty years, our family failed to spend part of August at the modest little cottage complex in Truro that we love so well. My husband began going there with his parents and siblings when he was a little boy. Our journey to the Cape is not just a vacation; it’s more like a pilgrimage. That narrow ribbon of land, curved like a hook into the bay, is, to us, if not quite the promised land, then something quite close to it. Certainly it’s a second home. We have no financial claim to any bit of real estate there, but we’re loyal renters. More importantly, as pilgrimage sites do, the place has claimed us as its own.
When we return, we go back to the same waterfront cottage, at the same time every year. We reconnect with many of the same families. We look out to a vast expanse of sand that leads to Cape Cod Bay, framed on each side by islands of sea grass and wild roses. The spare, simple skyline of Provincetown, about a mile away, appears to float atop the water. Its most distinctive feature, appropriately, is the tall, granite bell tower that commemorates the arrival of the original Pilgrims to the area, in 1620. Five weeks before landing at Plymouth, the Mayflower docked at what is now Provincetown Harbor. Due to rough weather, the ship had missed its mark in Northern Virginia. Anchored far north in Massachusetts, where the contract the Pilgrims had signed with the Virginia Company was deemed void, the group determined “to covenant and combine . . .together into a civil body politic,” to maintain order and the common good. So it was in Provincetown that the Mayflower Compact, an early and largely successful attempt at democracy, was written and signed. The Pilgrim Monument, now the symbol of the town’s warm, accepting and all-inclusive spirit, reminds us that great things are possible when we work together. For residents and returning pilgrims like our family, it’s a welcoming beacon. I love it that the tower is the anchoring feature in the ever-changing view from our little cottage.
The Pilgrim Monument was completed in 1910. Its design was based on the civic symbol of Siena, the 14h century Torre del Mangia in the Piazzo del Campo, the town’s main square. Other features of Provincetown’s narrow silhouette are two water towers, several church steeples, and the Town Hall tower.
Our view toward the bay varies minute by minute with the shifting of the light, the play of the clouds and the passage of the hours. The ethereal, transformative quality of Cape light has long made this area a favorite destination for artists. Above, around noontime, the sun glints off sparkling blue water, and a line of clouds hugs the horizon, in an otherwise clear sky.
On partially overcast afternoons, the water tends to turn silvery, like a sea of mercury. It’s often on days like this that the wind picks up, and my husband, and also now our daughter, may be out windsurfing.
One evening toward sunset, a sky resembling orange sherbet settled above the town’s dark silhouette and a bay of molten lead.
The color of the sand is changeable, as well. In early mornings and late afternoons, it may take on a peachy pink cast, as in the photos above and below. The dark patches of seaweed that litter the beach no doubt seem unsightly to some. But we’ve grown so used to it that it’s no longer remarkable. It’s just more evidence of the abundant life that thrives in and around the bay.
Windsurfing boards await my husband and daughter.
Occasionally, as a storm or dense fog moves in, all the towers of Provincetown are rendered completely invisible.
To me, the loveliest time of the day is just before sunset, when the shadows in the sand turn a magical, brilliant blue.
Sunset itself, on every clear day, is an event that brings our small, enduring community outside in admiration and awe. The sky often glows with streaks of increasingly fiery red, orange and yellow. And then, as the brilliant colors gradually dissipate, and Cape light fades into Cape night, the Pilgrim Monument is illuminated. Its white granite glows clean and bright against the dark sky. The tower is typically the last thing I see before I close my eyes at night. How comforting to know it is there, a reassuring beacon at all hours, in all weathers and seasons.
September is here, and another summer has passed in a blur. The view out every window in our house today is likewise blurry. The panes are wet and foggy in the aftermath of last night’s ferocious storm. As the remnants of Hurricane Ida passed through our area, I held my frightened dog as close as I could. For the first time in all his fourteen years, Kiko put his head right beside mine on my pillow. When he was younger, I might have said absolutely not: that’s too much doggie closeness. But last night, his little body, which trembled violently with every pulse of lightning, felt thin, fragile, and frail. My elastic, invincible puppy had long ago morphed into a senior dog. Very recently, he’s become an old man, often stiff, uncertain and hesitant. And in that middle-of-the-night angst that seizes me occasionally, my dog wasn’t the only one needing comfort. The strobe-effect lightning, the crashing thunder and the pounding rain seemed like a frenetic, wailing choral expression of world-wide pain.
There is more than enough grief and suffering to go around, these days. We’re eighteen months into a pandemic that continues to wreak havoc when it should be winding down. Every snippet of news, every glimpse of a headline, attests to some novel catastrophe of global proportions. Raging wildfires. Sudden, unpredictable floods. Another day, another mass shooting. Young lives tragically lost in the very last gasp of our twenty-year conflict in Afghanistan, and so many lives in peril now because the war is over. Everywhere, peace is more elusive and unlikely than ever. If Edvard Munch were alive today, his most well-known work, The Scream, might be a long series of paintings. All of these sad and frustrating thoughts swirled in my head as I cuddled my dog during the storm.
With the morning light, dully yellow-gray as it was, the world never seems quite so hopeless. My dog is still old, but he’s no longer shaking with fear. Surviving a storm typically reinvigorates him temporarily. The news is still mostly bad, of course. And there is this significant transition to reckon with: our daughter has moved to Maryland and started her job. The summer flew by in a blur because there was so much to do as we anticipated and prepared for this major change. We were busy. And now that long-awaited change is here. The new life phase that our daughter begins is brimming with purpose and meaning: a new address, the start of a career, a time to chart her own unique course, one no longer set by her parents. And what of us, her mother and father, now true empty-nesters? We’re elated for our daughter. And anxious, as well. We’ll be cheerleaders for her, certainly. But what will we make of our new life phase? Will we find ways to fill it with purpose and meaning? That will be our challenge in the coming days. That, and dealing with our elderly dog.
On the 5th of July, had my dog not needed walking, I might have missed the spectacular beauty of the morning. There are days now when Kiko sleeps in, curled contentedly in his fluffy bed, oblivious to the sunlight flooding in around him. But on Monday, he was up early and ready to step out. Maybe he was feeling cocky after having finally realized that the terrible Fireworks Monster is not a big deal. This year, he wasn’t traumatized as in the past by the crackles and booms of our neighborhood celebration. Gradual hearing loss may have its good points. The noises seemed to make him marginally uneasy, but not nervous enough to pace the house in a restless search for consolation that is perpetually out of reach. Instead, he remained settled in his bed even after the fireworks began to pop. He seemed sufficiently relaxed so that I decided to join my family and friends for the show for the first time in years, instead of cocooning myself with my quaking dog in a curtained room with heavy blankets and a loud TV. On our return, Kiko greeted us with what I interpreted as an air of studied nonchalance. “I’m cool,” he seemed to say. “But no thanks to you. I know you left me alone.”
For whatever reason, Kiko was up early the following day, with a particular pep in his step, and so I was up and out, also, in time to witness the sparkling glory of the post-Independence Day morning. A golden haze suffused the air, and the sun’s rays were clearly visible, as in a child’s drawing. Kiko found it annoying that I kept stopping to take photos, which can’t quite capture the radiance of the morning. As we walked down our neighbor’s front walk after bringing the Washington Post to her door, the glowing light streaming through the trees resembled an image of the entrance to heaven. In the unusually peaceful quiet of the holiday morning (no rushing traffic, no typical suburban summer sounds of lawn mowing, tree cutting, leaf blowing and power washing) it could be appreciated without distraction.
Kiko’s interest, as always, lay in scents instead of sights. The fascinating smorgasbord of smells kept him briskly on the move as he led the way, with purpose, toward his favorite little park. By that time, the shimmering mist was dissipating, but there among the woods, it lingered still.
Kiko maintained a quick pace on our return. My elderly, slowly meandering dog was temporarily replaced by his former puppy self. When we reached the home stretch, he began to run. My knees resisted, but I did my best to keep up.
Once home, Kiko was soon cozily snuggled in his bed. The dog who emerges revived and invigorated after a long night of fireworks certainly deserves his rest.
On this 4th of July, 2021, and every day, Abraham Lincoln’s words spoken at the dedication of the Gettysburg Battlefield in November of 1863 are well worth recalling. May we honor these words, just as we honor those who gave their lives to defend the principles upon which our nation was founded. May we continue to defend these principles, by accepting and learning from the truth, even when it is painful.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate–we can not consecrate–we can not hallow–this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ”
Let us remember that as Americans, true patriotic duty is expressed not by proclaiming our country to be flawless, but instead to work together, despite our differences, toward a more perfect Union.
Happy 4th of July!
A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.
