Cape Cod Day 2

G3 was six the first time we took him to Cape Cod. At the time, my brother owned a condo in P-town and he invited us—me, Kati, and G3–to stay there during family week, the largest gathering of queer families in the country. It was a kind and extremely generous offer and we much appreciated it. At the time, I wasn’t working so we couldn’t afford much, especially a vacation. I was grateful to my brother that staying at his place allowed me to take young G3 somewhere different and give him a tiny taste of traveling. For five summers, we visited the Cape. Mostly, we explored Turo and P-town but we also took G3 to the pirate museum—oh how he was fascinated by pirates back then. We also took him on day trips to Boston and Plymouth. We would go biking together and swimming. We all loved the ocean beaches. Then in 2021, my brother sold the condo and we haven’t been back since, until now.

As you all know, lately, my vacations are more like travel expeditions. Since I like to explore and see new places, I do not prefer to do the same thing or go to the same place year after year. That does not mean I don’t like revisiting places I love because I do enjoy that sense of comfort of knowing what to expect of looking forward to doing something specific. I love Cape Cod because the smell of pine trees mingling with the salty air reminds me of childhood. And I am surrounded by water and the ocean—non commercialized as it is in Jersey—makes me happy. Ironically, I am back in Cape Cod and also back to being unemployed. But being here brings me peace so maybe I will have time to reevaluate my life and decide where to go and what to do from here. I don’t want to go back to teaching. I need to find a way to monetize my obsessions with traveling and writing.

The last time we were in Cape Cod in the summer, it was the year Dad died. G3 and I needed to get away, we needed a change of scenery, an escape from our all consuming grief. We came here for a week, allowing the ocean to heal us as well as it could and then we took a two week road trip to swim in all the Great Lakes. That’s when we fell in love with Superior. We still missed Dad, we always will, but time away eased our grief.

For G3–and me to an extent—Cape Cod had come to mean P-town. So it’s nice staying in Wellfleet this time. It gives us an opportunity to experience a different part of the Cape. Wellfleet is more suited towards my preferences. It’s more rural, and lacks the busyness of Commercial Street. The house in which we are staying is semi-secluded and surrounded by trees. No neighbors close by which is lovely. The deck is quiet. This is the sort of place I could live and be happy. I could sit out on the deck and write without distractions. But I digress. This morning I woke up early and instead of just going out for my usual walk, I consulted the Geocaching app again. There is an Adventure cache right in town. I could have driven to the center of town, but that kind of felt like cheating. If I walked, I’d be able to see more. I discovered a hiking trail near the house which I followed to the main road. A short clip on Route 6 and I was able to turn left into town. It’s a quaint beach town, and since it’s Sunday morning it was quiet and mostly deserted. The cache took me past the creek and down to the harbor. It was low tide so there was no water in the creek. Boats were docked in the harbor and there were a few people milling about. One of the caches took me to The First Congressional Church. Allegedly, it’s the only church in the world that uses a ship’s striking bell system. On board a ship, the day is divided into six four hour shifts with shifts starting at midnight. The bells chime to mark the passage of each shift. They ring once a half hour into the shift and then a ring is added with the passing of each half hour until the shift ends with eight rings. On ships, the bells chime around the clock. At the church, they are silent at night while people sleep.

When I returned to the house, I woke G3 up and my brother suggested we go to a local flea market. The flea market was in the parking lot of the drive-in movie theater. They sold mostly junk, although my brother bought a pair of sunglasses and G3 got a Lord of the Rings movie poster.

We got to the beach later than my mom would have liked but we did get there. My brother suggested we get passes for the town beaches but that seemed a waste of money since I have the National Parks’ pass that gets us into the National Seashore beaches. Since it was late, we went to Marconi beach. It is the closest to where we are staying. The sky was clear but the wind was strong making the air cool. The water was cold—very cold—but G3 and I did go in for a bit. While we were sitting on the beach, we saw seals swim by several times. Mom missed them at first but she finally did see them just as we were getting ready to leave.

G3 asked if we could get ice cream on the way back to the house. It’s been six years since we last went to the beach with Dad, yet he still remembers the way things were, the things Dad did with him and he wants to relive them. When I pointed out that we had not yet eaten dinner, he said, “How many times did Grandpa get us ice cream on the way home from the beach?” Guessing that there had to be an ice cream shop in town, I took a detour en route to the house and sure enough we came upon A Nice Cream Stop. The ice cream was expensive but good. I decided to be daring and not get my usual, so I had mud pie—oreos and chocolate mixed into coffee ice cream.

My brother made gumbo for dinner. It was very good. G3 impressed Mom with his knowledge of wine. She asked him how he knew so much. He responded, “That’s what happens when your moms take you to hundreds of wineries.” I don’t think it’s been quite that many, but yeah, we’ve been to a few.

After dinner, G3 and I played ping pong. He stayed up until two-thirty last night practicing so he wasn’t happy I won. I suggested

a second game but he declined.

Samson, my brother’s cat, is such a little cuddle bug. He loves to be held and simply melts into your arms when you pick him up. Lily, his dog, is old and likes to sleep curled up next to anyone who will pet her.