Category Archives: Community

What is this Season? Winger? Sprinter? Springer?

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There will be a blizzard raging this weekend just to the north of the DC area. It seems that northern Virginia has already received our meager portion of accumulation.  We awoke to areas of white mushy crystals around the bases of trees.  Pine boughs drooped slightly under a thin coating of watery ice.  Now the temperature is rising and a light rain is falling.  Kiko evaluated conditions from the dry warmth of the front hall and deemed it too yucky to hurry out on our morning walk.  He is now cuddled on the office sofa, and I am very thankful. My daughter, of course, takes the  lack of snow as yet another personal affront by her old nemesis, the Weather.

What should we call this ambiguous season?  It’s winter one day, spring the next.  I’m more used to this pattern than many people, having grown up in Atlanta, where 70-degree temperatures routinely alternate with those of 30- or 40-degrees.  I remember when Virginia had four distinct seasons, but nowadays, they’re more of a blur.

Over the past week, the extreme cold has subsided here.  As the fine layer of snow in our yard disappeared, it revealed one of our first signs of spring:  the dark red clusters of buds that have fallen from our old silver maples.  These seem to appear earlier and earlier every year.  It’s not just a few buds, either, but many, heavily sprinkled over the yard.  The readiness of our big, battered maples continues to amaze me.  From the first cold days of winter, they are already anticipating spring.  Like good scouts, they are prepared, standing sentry for the first warmer rays of sunshine.  And during these recent winters, they receive many confusing signals:  Get ready!  No, wait!  Yes, go ahead!  No, no, no, hold up– it’s snowing!  Wrong  again–it’s only rain.  I feel bad for our trees; such see-sawing conditions must be hard on their elderly systems.

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A tiny bouquet of silver maple buds, some already sprouting with fine pale green foliage.

The melting snow revealed further evidence of a new season.  Bright yellow-green daffodil shoots are already emerging from the ground.  Unless you’re in the extreme north, you’re probably noticing them, too. The beginning of February really seems too early for them to be heading up and out, but who am I to judge?

Another unexpected sign of spring at our house is this: Kiko has already been dozing in his favorite sunny spot on the back terrace by the garage doors.  I watched him as he settled there after an unsuccessful pursuit of a squirrel at the bird feeder. In years past, I don’t remember ever seeing him there before April or so.

And finally, what about the robins?  I know I can’t be the only one to notice that the robins are choosing to remain with us in Virginia all winter long, just as they always do in Georgia.  I used to remember noticing their distinct absence, as well as their much-anticipated return.  They typically left around the first of December and showed up again with the melting snows of early March.  But this winter and last, having apparently adjusted to the weather roller coaster, they haven’t bothered to fly south.  They are hopping across our thawing lawn right now, drilling for worms.

To the many disappointed kids like my daughter, I’m sorry that the hoped-for snow is nothing but rain. I’m sorry today’s slush wasn’t even enough to warrant a two-hour delay. And to those of you in the path of this weekend’s storm, good luck, and take care.  For all of us, spring (or sprummer?) will be here sooner than we expect.  Although who can say what season will follow?

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Daffodil shoots popping up from the mulch in our back garden.

                                   

What is this White Stuff?

 

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We woke up this morning, unexpectedly, to snow.  It wasn’t a lot of snow, but it was enough to cover the yard and nicely powder the trees and shrubs, to give the world a sort of winter facelift.  It’s been ages since we’ve seen snow here in northern Virginia, so it was a welcome sight.  Schools were delayed two hours, giving my daughter, a snow fanatic, the chance to enjoy it.  The snow piled up prettily on the nandina berries, above.

Today’s snow is pleasant, attractive and manageable.  I don’t miss the winters of constant snow, as my daughter does.  When she was in preschool and kindergarten, seems like every Friday from December through February brought just enough accumulation to shut down the schools.  The prospect of another snow day overjoyed her as much as it exhausted me.  I don’t look back fondly on the  years of blizzard after blizzard.  I hated the many transportation worries.  Will the schoolbus make it through?  Will the steeply winding road home be passable?  Should I cancel that appointment? What havoc will be wreaked by those drivers who have no business venturing out in such weather?  Will my husband get stuck behind someone who is unwisely inching up the long hill, again?  Will D and I be left to try to shovel the driveway alone, anxiously awaiting roadside updates from H?

The snowy weather ceased, of course, once H bought a snowblower.  While he’s been itching to give it a try, I wouldn’t mind if he doesn’t need it again this winter.  Or, maybe, to please him and D, he could use it just once.  For their sake, I wouldn’t mind one lovely deep snow.  While I’m wishing, I’ll wish for the flakes to start falling some Friday night after we’re all safely home.

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The yard was covered, just barely, with snow.  The trees and bushes were powdered white.

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Kiko seemed to have completely forgotten that he had ever experienced snow before.  He found it strange but exhilarating. 

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The first glimpse of the sun in the sky this morning could have been lifted from a Currier and Ives print.

Cold, Miserable Rainy-Day Dog-Walking

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The recent cold, rainy weather here in Virginia has been the sort that tests even the most dedicated dog walker. The mornings have brought no pastel watercolor skies, no evidence, really, at all, of the existence of a distant, light and life-giving golden orb. There is only a gradual diminishing of the steely gray darkness. The atmosphere of pervasive gloom is not lessened as the day progresses. It’s hard to look on the bright side when no bright side is visible.

On dreary wet mornings like this one, Kiko’s enthusiasm for the first outing of the day is, thankfully, muted. If the sound of rain is loud and continuous, he might remain curled in his bed, small and fox-like, for several hours. We have postponed that initial walk as late as 11:00 AM on some rainy days. I was hoping this would be the case today, but unfortunately it was not. I was able to delay him for about an hour, but no longer.

I cannot complain of being poorly equipped for dog walking in inclement weather. Prompted either by tender familial devotion or a determination that none of us would have an excuse for not walking the dog on wet days, my husband has outfitted the whole family with extensive rain gear. In addition to hooded, high-tech jackets, we have waterproof boots and pants. If it’s pouring rain, and if I can locate my rain pants (that’s a big if), I’m glad to pull them on over my jeans. More typically, I decide that the rain isn’t steady or strong enough to warrant leg protection. I usually regret this decision, as I did today.

Rain seems to bring out the absolute worst in Kiko’s on-leash behavior. You’d never know he is a Puppy Obedience School grad. (But we have the photo of him, looking ridiculous in a mortarboard hat, to prove it.) The wet weather apparently enhances the depth and variety of earthy smells, so Kiko dawdles excessively, his nose working furiously. Rainy-day walks seem to be, for my dog, the equivalent of science labs. Unless I tug him unmercifully, we inch along. Every clump of grass beckons, begging to be sniffed and sampled, its delicate taste evidently heightened by the rain. Every messy smudge on the road asks to be examined and identified. Dangerous human snacks like bony chicken wings are more likely to be discovered on rainy days, and I must fish them out of his mouth with my fingers. At least Kiko has outgrown his taste for earthworms. If he finds nothing of interest directly in front of him, he tends to stand transfixed, a model of indecision, checking the air for enticing aromas nearby. Finally, there’s what I call his fake-out marking, more prevalent in the rain. He smells a spot lingeringly and intently; he pauses, looks up, almost lifts his leg, yet decides against it.

The more impatient and miserable I become during these rainy walks, the slower Kiko moves. This morning I opted against bringing an umbrella. No matter how often I tugged my hood forward, it kept slipping back, letting rain drop into my eyes, ears and hair. Water trickled into the gap at my wrist between jacket and glove. My gloves were soon heavy and cumbersome. My formerly watertight boots have recently developed a leak, and the first puddle admitted a small flood. One foot was immediately drenched.

The final part of the walk is the worst, along a narrow county road that winds along by the stream bed. It’s picturesque, but treacherous. The nearly nonexistent shoulder is muddy, rutted and overgrown. I’m continually amazed at the cars that fly by, mere inches from my shoulder. I have been known, I admit, to shake my head slowly from side to side, or even to gesture forcefully, if not specifically, in hopes that some may think to slow down, or perhaps, when there is no oncoming traffic, to move closer to the center line. If I ever turn up in the “Public Safety Notes” of our free local paper, I predict it will be due to my encounter with some driver along this stretch of road. I hope it will involve no bodily harm to either party. I expect it will mention something like a “heated verbal exchange.”

For those of you, who, like me, are out there with your dog on dismal mornings, I commiserate with you. And for those who have no dog that requires walking, be sure to count this today as one of your blessings!

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He looks so sweet–why can’t he sleep all day long? 

Moving On, Into a New Year

It’s the seventh of January, 2013.  Epiphany has been celebrated; the Christmas season is officially over.  The electric candles in our windows have clicked on and off for the last time this winter. Tonight’s early January dusk will have to stand on its own; there will be no soothing, quasi-magical boost of simulated candlelight. We are back in ordinary time. Yet again, the days sped by too quickly.

 

This is the dreaded week of my Christmas clean-up.   I began the day by wandering remorsefully through the house, wishing we hadn’t put up six trees, wondering where to start the process of un-decoration. As always, I will resolve this year, for a change, to find the right boxes for the packing-up.  When I can’t manage that, I will vow to locate an actual working marker to label the boxes.  When even that proves undoable, I will tell myself that I’ll remember what I put where.  Eleven months from now, I will be standing in our frigid attic, muddled and confused.  The box that professes to contain miniature trees will be full of stockings and bead garlands.  Where did the box of white lights go this time?  Some crucial item, usually one of our star tree-toppers, will have vanished completely.

But it’s a new year, and it’s time to move on. The trappings of the holiday season have undergone an unmistakable, unsavory shift in essence. Five weeks ago, they were the stuff of joy and hope. Now they are clutter. The blue spruce is droopy and dry, its needles as sharp as steel.

I look forward, past the mess, envisioning the uncluttered, restful simplicity of mid-January.  It’s an illusion, a vanishing mirage, of course.  With a vengeance, this first month bursts with the business of everyday life.  A glance at the calendar reveals an exhausting proliferation of church meetings, school volunteer meetings and appointments with doctors.  All that and all the Christmas debris, still here.

Yet the reality of the new year brings a clearer, if starker, light.  It gladdens my heart to think that the shortest, darkest day of the year has come and gone. The earth is turning, tilting toward spring. The leaves of the rhododendrons in our back garden shrivel in the cold, but their blooms are set, ready and waiting.  Nature’s optimism and foresight promises renewal.  It really is time to move on.

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A rhododendron bud stands by for spring.

The Light Shines in the Darkness, No Matter What Happens

 

Light Shines 004 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 –Luke 1: 5

As I contemplated a post for Christmas Eve, I realized that the one I wrote last year still expresses my thoughts for the day.  I modified the end somewhat, in response to recent tragedies, including that in Newtown, Connecticut.

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Our church’s candlelight Christmas Eve service is one of the highlights of the year. Each person receives a small white candle upon entering. Toward the end of the service, the sanctuary goes dark. The acolytes assist the congregation with the lighting of the individual, hand-held candles. Gradually, while we sing Silent Night, the light grows. By the final verse, the sanctuary is brightly glowing, as each member of the congregation holds high a lighted candle.

The process is a beautiful expression of God’s love. Into the darkness of the world, God sent a light. It appeared dim and insignificant at first. But soon it grew brighter and kindled countless other lights. When we allow the light of God’s gift to come alive within us, we glow. And we, in turn, have the power to spread the light. Our combined light is a mighty force. The darkness will not overcome it.

The source of the light is one baby, born to an unknown young woman and witnessed only by her trusting husband and perhaps the animals of a stable. In an unlikely juxtaposition, a multitude of angels announces the birth not to the ruling elite, but to shepherds in the fields outside of town. (This is nevertheless appropriate, because the baby’s great ancestor David was a shepherd boy when he was hand-picked to be king.) Before long, the birth of the child has attracted the attention of wise men from distant Eastern lands. Led by a singular star, they embark on a long journey to find the humble family. They bow down in awe before the baby and present him with rare and costly gifts.

God’s great gift turns the world upside down, upsets its expected order. There is no room in the comfort of any inn for God’s only son. Angels appear to lowly shepherds, and kings worship a baby. Allowing God’s light to shine within us may lead us to unexpected places. The tidiness of our lives is likely to be overturned. This is the difficulty in letting our inner light shine. Its power may summon us to go where we would rather not venture. It may be more convenient to quench that light, to hide it under a bushel. But knowing that the flame that dwells within us is from God, the light of salvation, ever-present, we can have the courage to go where it wills us.

The darkness of our world may seem impenetrable at times.  When innocent children and their caring leaders are massacred on a crisp Friday morning two weeks before Christmas, our world appears almost unimaginably dark.  It would seem that God turned his back that day in Newtown, Connecticut.  What about the angels some say he sends?  Where were they that day?   No one, not the most learned theologian or the holiest, most enlightened human, can adequately explain why such terrible things happen. Certainly I can’t.  But it helps me to realize that we lack God’s all-seeing perspective.  We see through the glass dimly; we can’t grasp the big picture.  Maybe God did send angels that day, but they didn’t work as we might expect.  Maybe those who died in Newtown were needed elsewhere; maybe they were promoted early to a place of honor and privilege somewhere we might call heaven.

Despite the evil that is abroad in the world, God’s love is stronger.  We are never alone; he is with us even in the worst of times. He is there to lead us to the light, out of the depths of despair.  On this Christmas Eve, I pray for the light to be kindled and nourished in hearts throughout the world.  And I pray that we will have the strength to let the light be our guide.

Do not be afraid; for see—I bring you good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

–Luke 2: 10b-11

Remembering Gudmund Vigtel of the High Museum of Art

 

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The High Museum of Art, August 1985.

My friend and former boss Gudmund Vigtel died last month at the age of 87.  For nearly thirty years, Vig, as he was generally known, was the face and guiding force  of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.  He became the museum’s director in 1963, when it was a fledgling institution in a provincial backwater, housed in a nondescript building adjacent to its first home, the Peachtree Street mansion of the High family.

Vig led the High through two pivotal periods of extraordinary growth.  In June of 1962, 106 of Atlanta’s most prominent arts patrons, returning from a museum-sponsored trip to Europe, were killed when their plane crashed on take-off at Orly Airport in Paris.  Since Atlanta’s founding in 1836 as Terminus, the end point of a railway hub, its citizens have tended to value business over culture.  But they are a resilient lot, determined not to be bested.  The Orly tragedy, like General Sherman’s burning of the city during the Civil War, inspired a deeply felt resolve to regroup and rebuild, bigger and better.  Gudmund Vigtel, then assistant director at the Corcoran Gallery in D.C., was hired to head up the new, expanded arts facility to be known as the Atlanta Memorial Arts Center.

Vig must have stood out as a cosmopolitan, dashing European figure in the Atlanta of the early 60s.   Born in Jerusalem to Lutheran missionaries from Norway, he had lived in Vienna and Oslo before his family fled (on skis, as I’ve always heard) from Nazi-occupied Norway into Sweden.  But Vig had Georgia ties as well.  Having studied art in Sweden, he received a Rotary Scholarship that first took him to a small college in north Georgia.  It was not a good fit.  He recounted how he spent lonely afternoons sitting on a big rock, asking himself, Why am I here? Before long, he managed to transfer to the Atlanta College of Art, where the more urban environment suited him better.

I met Vig during the second pivotal period of his  tenure at the High.  During the 1970s he became increasingly convinced that his museum was still too small. When, in 1977, the blockbuster King Tut show bypassed Atlanta for New Orleans because the High lacked sufficient exhibition space, it was clear that Vig was right.  He launched an impassioned campaign for a considerably larger and more striking building.  Despite the board’s initial preference for a local architect, he managed to persuade them to choose the as yet unproven Richard Meier of New York.  Meier would go on to to design the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and to win the Pritzker Prize for architecture.

I had the  good fortune to work for Vig as Secretary to the Director during the High’s first two years in the new Meier facility.  (There are, of course no secretaries at the museum now, or perhaps anywhere; they have been promoted to other titles, if not in salary.) Thanks to my dentist, a family friend, avid art collector and museum patron, I learned about the job opening.  It was the summer of 1983, and I had just graduated from UGA with a degree in Art History.  I was coming to terms with the realization that this was, as I had  suspected, hardly a golden key to a lucrative or, perhaps, any career.  Luckily, I could type.  I applied at the High.  I wasn’t hired; there was a better, faster typist.  About three weeks later, I got a call from the museum.  The other applicant hadn’t worked out, for various reasons. When Vig had referred, for example, to the artist Botticelli in his dictated letters, this secretary had repeatedly transcribed Buddy Chelly.  Was I still interested?

The postmodern Meier building, its undulating facade clad in white enamel tile, was due to open that October when I began work in July. The offices had just moved into the new quarters, but the galleries and atrium remained unfinished.  Heavy plastic sheeting kept some of the dust out but did nothing to diminish the loudness of the construction noise. The pace of construction was quick and constant, and it only added to the excitement of working at the museum.  I loved my front-row seat in the living theatre that was staging the airy new building’s completion.  And I soon became fond of my boss and the rest of the museum staff.

Many of us spend our lives knowing and regretting that we have not yet hit upon the perfect career fit.  Vig found his, it would certainly seem.  He had a broad knowledge and true devotion to art of various genres and styles.  But he lacked any trace of pretense or conceit; he bore no resemblance to the stereotypical artsy intellectual.  Not a single aspect of the life of the museum was beneath him, and he was apparently tireless.  What’s more, Vig had a real  gift for the human connection; he was thoughtful, warm, empathetic, funny and charming.  He inspired the best in every staff member, and we held him in high regard.

As Vig’s dramatic vision for the new building was nearing completion, it was a heady time to be part of the HMA team. The museum opened on schedule in October, with a dizzying flurry of celebratory events  held in the soaring central atrium.  Vig treated his staff with the same respect and courtesy as the most generous or sought-after patrons.  HMA parties were equal-opportunity events.  Security guards danced with curators; art handlers and secretaries rubbed elbows with Atlanta’s civic leaders and the occasional celebrity.  Vig was always there at the heart of the party, like a joyful father of the bride, surrounded, in his elegant home, by those he loved best.

Vig’s oddly spelled Norwegian name confounded most homegrown Southerners.  Yet its pronounciation was straightforward:  Good mund Vig tel, with the accent on each first syllable.  I was amazed by the vast volume of unsolicited letters (many of them very strange, to say the least) that the museum received.  The majority of these erred comically in the spelling of Vig’s name. They variously addressed him as Gudmund Viglet, Gudmund Vigtoe, Goodmood Vigel, Goodood Wigtel and even, somehow, Tubmund Eigtel.  Vig never took himself too seriously, and he found these permutations as amusing as I did.  He also laughed and reassured me when I realized, too late, that one of the letters I typed had gone out to Ms. Roberta Goizueta instead of Mr. Roberto Goizueta, then the Chairman of Coca-Cola.

Vig’s impact on the arts of Atlanta was profound.  Like so many others whose lives he touched, I will think of him often, and with affection.  In my mind I see him now, and it’s 1985.  He’s coming back from checking a new painting in the  galleries, crossing the wide atrium.  He’s walking his characteristically jaunty walk, grey curls bouncing a bit, suit slightly rumpled.   As he approaches, I hear him speak my name in the Norwegian accent he never lost, and I see the customary twinkle in his eye.  Gudmund Vigtel will be greatly missed, but lovingly and gladly remembered.

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On this T-shirt, made c. 1985 by the HMA staff to celebrate Vig’s birthday, he is surrounded by some of the more egregiously erroneous misspellings of his name, collected from letters. Vig’s uncharacteristically gruff expression was intended for comic purposes.  I wish I hadn’t worn the shirt for painting; the splotch on Vig’s jacket is a later, accidental addition.

On This Election Day, Go Vote!

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My maternal grandmother Nora was born in 1894.  In 1920, when the 19th Amendment, the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, was passed, she was twenty-six.  She had been married to my grandfather for five years, and they were the parents of a two-year old son, my mother’s oldest brother.  Having lived through a time when women could not vote, my grandmother took that newly granted right very seriously.  She never missed an election, either national or local, and she was quite vocal in encouraging other women to get out and vote.  Not voting was a sure sign of laziness, ignorance, or just “being plain sorry,” according to Nora.

I wish I had thought to ask her, before her death at age 94, about the presidential election of 1920.  I would like to have discussed the details, such as where she voted and how.  Were there long lines, and did the women turn out enthusiastically? Like most rural Kentuckians and Southerners of her generation, my grandmother was an ardent, lifelong Democrat. I assume she cast her first vote for James M. Cox, the Democratic candidate, newspaperman and Governor of Ohio.  Cox, by nearly all hindsight accounts the better man, lost to Warren G. Harding, now remembered primarily for the rampant corruption of his administration. Twelve years would pass before my grandmother chose the winning ticket, when she, no doubt, voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. Interestingly, a young FDR had been James Cox’s Vice Presidential running mate.

Today on election day, I’m especially grateful to the generations of determined women who fought for nearly a hundred years for the precious right to vote.  Because of their efforts, my grandmother voted in 1920, I will vote today, and my daughter will vote before long.  In years past, I may have supported candidates that probably would not have won my grandmother’s vote.  But this year, I feel confident that she would strongly agree with my choice.

On this election day and always, may God bless the United States of America!

Rochester, Down by the Tracks

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When I was young, I spent my summer days
Playing on the track.
The sound of the wheels rollin’ on the steel
Took me out, took me back.

Big train, from Memphis.
Big train, from Memphis.
Now it’s gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.

–John Fogerty, Big Train from Memphis

For many of those who grew up hearing the whistle and roar of passing trains in the night, the sounds evoke home, family and childhood.  My husband and I each became accustomed to the music of the trains, and we miss it here in Virginia.  When we return to Rochester or Atlanta to visit his parents or mine, we savor the familiar, comforting sounds of the train.

H and his childhood friends really did spend their summer days playing on the tracks and beneath the adjacent highway overpasses, at least when they were not deep in the neighborhood woods.  The tracks are easily accessible from his sister’s house in Rochester.  If we have time, we head over to see what’s new and what’s as it always was.  It’s a particular joy for H to explore the area again with his daughter by his side.  She appreciates his tales of boyhood adventure as well as the desolate beauty of the landscape along the tracks.

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D was delighted to find this sturdy rope well-anchored to the underside of the bridge. 

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               The unruly landscape bordering the tracks gets a beauty treatment of fall colors.

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           A mingling of the seasons: touches of gold and green among the fallen brown leaves.

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           D negotiates the tangle of weeds as she emerges from down under and years gone by. 

In Provincetown: Serenity on Commercial Street

Commercial Street begins in Provincetown’s quiet East End, just across the line from quiet Truro.  The street name appears misleading at first, in this almost exclusively residential stretch, a mix of cottages, grand homes, and historic guesthouses.  The crowds of tourists are absent for the first mile or so.  My daughter and I especially enjoy exploring this serene section of the street, where lush gardens flourish and the waters of the bay provide a bright, sparkling backdrop.

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 A favorite subject of local artists, this white Dutch colonial, with its pristine lawn overlooking the bay, is the first home on Commercial Street’s East End.

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Pigeons keep watch over Commercial Street from the dormer of the sturdy brick house where Norman Mailer lived and wrote for 25 years.  After the author’s death, the home became the Norman Mailer Writers Colony.

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An eighteenth-century Cape Cod cottage, glimpsed through the garden gate.

 

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The gardens of Provincetown, though typcially small, are vigorously hardy, dramatic and colorful.

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This spacious expanse of lawn, with its rugged old schoolyard swing set, is an odd, unexpected luxury in Provincetown, where bay-side land is at a great premium.

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An artfully styled P-town compound, with a patriotic tableau of American flag and exuberant red and blue flowers in white window boxes.

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At the Sea Urchin cottage, a profusion of wild roses and a sandy path to the water.

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Tranquil spaces may be found even in the busiest section of Commercial Street, as here on the shady porch of Shor, a home furnishings showroom.  Next door is the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, built in 1847.  The church’s front lawn, when not hosting an open-air market, offers an inviting escape from the crowds, as does its gracious interior, notable for the trompe l’oeil sculptural paintings in the sanctuary.

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             The beautifully detailed tower of the Meeting House.

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This charming book store, located in a little house behind and surrounded by art galleries in the midst of Commercial Street, is reached by a tree-shaded pathway.  D and I stop in at Tim’s to browse the shelves for interesting bargains and to enjoy the quiet.   

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Artists began to discover the small fishing village of Provincetown in the last decades of the nineteenth century.  It quickly became established as an artist’s colony after Charles Hawthorne opened his Cape Cod School of Art in 1899.  Now, over 40 galleries display a wide range of styles.  In the hands of local artists, the regional tradition of atmospheric, Impressionistic landscapes, still lifes and figurative work remains vital and fresh.  The gallery above specializes in bold contemporary Asian art.  Many of the galleries are staffed by the artists themselves, who tend to be friendly and unpretentious.

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The 200-year old Red Inn, which hosts one of the town’s most acclaimed restaurants, is in Commercial Street’s far West End, past the reach of the heaviest crowds. The deck, with its view of the harbor, is a spectacular spot for a sunset drink. Here, in the repose of early morning, neat white chairs welcome the promise of another beautiful day. 

In Provincetown: The Heart of Commercial Street

Even though I’m glad to feel the September chill in the air, I find myself looking back fondly on August, to our time at the Cape.  Perhaps because the school year has begun, bringing its steady stream of routine duties and a deluge of paperwork, the echoes of those last lazy days of summer are especially sweet right now.

The appeal of our quiet little cottage complex in Truro is heightened by its location next door to bustling Provincetown, shoehorned into the narrow tip of the outer Cape.  It’s a tiny town with an expansive, generous spirit, urban flair, and an edgy sense of humor.  Eccentrics of all stripes, as well as tourists from the heartland, find a warm welcome in P-Town, where ecumenical diversity flourishes.

The central section of Commercial Street, the narrow main artery, is one long party during beach season, when it’s crowded with pedestrians and vehicles.  In Provincetown, the architecture is historic and charming, the street musicians are inventive and mostly talented, the food is excellent, offerings of art, musical theatre and comedy are vast and easily accessible, the drag queens are witty, the world’s most expressive T-shirts are available, and bay breezes blow.  It truly has something for everyone.

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Above, the busy heart of Commercial Street, catching the ever-present Cape Cab in transit.  Its sister vehicles include two wildly painted mini-limos known as the Funk Buses, which offer on-the-road karaoke.  Provincetown is no place for a sensible Lincoln Town Car.

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Another view of Commercial Street, above. The umbrella-shaded outdoor dining area at Patio is an ideal spot for people and dog watching.   Provincetown is an enthusiastically pet-friendly town, despite the notable absence of any dogs in this photo.  I counted thirty dogs in one hour last year during dinner at Patio.  Most were on leashes, others were pushed in strollers or carried in handbags.  There was even one puppy in some sort of dog-Snugli.  Because our place in Truro doesn’t allow pets, we can’t bring Kiko, but we almost always see at least one Shiba Inu.   My hope is that someday, somehow, he’ll be able to accompany us.  I like to think he has an artistic sensibility and would feel completely at home here.

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Provincetown, fiercely protective of its unique quirkiness, is resistant to national chains. You won’t find a McDonald’s, a Rite Aid, or a CVS.  No Starbucks, no T.G.I. Friday’s, no Applebee’s.  No Burger King, although, there is, appropriately, a Burger Queen. The Little Red, above, is a friendly, well-stocked convenience store, housed in what appears to be a brightly painted Victorian playhouse. 

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Like many buildings in densely populated Provincetown, this gray turreted house, which could easily feature in an Addams Family film,  has commercial space below and living space above.  The towers of the Pilgrim Monument and the Unitarian Church peek out from behind.

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A living statue often occupies a prime spot in front of the Town Hall. Above, during the summer of 2010, Cady Vishniac posed regularly as a bronze figure of a Depression-era hobo. Richard Mason, inspired by Provincetown’s World War I Memorial statue nearby, occupied the corner in 2011, in the guise of a WWI soldier.

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Above, the sun sets on the Lobster Pot and the Governor Bradford bar and restaurant across the street.  I’ve tasted nothing better, ever, I believe, than the pan-roasted lobster at the Lobster Pot.  If you think lobster is lobster, and cannot be improved upon, this will change your mind.  The Pot is always packed, but it’s worth the wait.  Get your lobster buzzer and wander through the nearby shops.

The yellow banner for Mary Poppers prompts me to note that this year, at last, we had a John Waters sighting.  The director and author makes his summer residence in P-Town.   I’ve never seen him riding his bike down Commercial Street, as many have, but we spotted him, unmistakable in his pencil-thin moustache, walking with friends on Bradford Street.  They were heading toward the Provincetown Theatre to see the popular Mary Poppins parody.

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The haunting neon glow of The Lobster Pot, a beacon for hungry tourists and locals.

Look for another P-Town post to follow soon: Serenity on Commercial Street.