Sharp, bright, fragmented

Ocean epilogue to a city weekend

Hello my friends,

I am thinking of this entry as another letter, not an essay, though I hope to write essays again when things quiet down.

We walked Chappy at sunset last night, just Chris and me. It was grey and cloudy at home, the air thick and close, not an enticing evening to be outside. But when we arrived at the beach it was breezy. A stripe of clear sky had opened along the horizon and the beach was at its widest, swept clean by a receding tide.

I often say we got our dogs because of Chapoquoit Beach. Back when I was resistant to the idea and Chris was longing for one we would go just to meet other people’s dogs. They aren’t allowed on the sand in summer, but once the fall comes they return: running in packs, sniffing the salt grass, bounding at the waters edge, or plodding close to their people. Now that we have our own dogs, we walk there less frequently than I would have expected. Lance gallops in wide loops around us, returning when we call him. But Penny is intense about other dogs and walking her is an act of constant vigilance. This is all to say, last night we were walking the beach with only ourselves to mind, which felt strange.

There were not many other walkers. The sun cast an orange glow across the bay and the waves came in constant rows of chop. We saw one dog breaking the summertime rules and cheered it privately. Along the water’s edge little packs of plovers pecked and winged. The public beach is short, just the length of the parking lot. Then there is a private club with a long grey bathhouse, a new modern glass box of a house being swiftly undermined by erosion, and low shingled houses tucked into the dune.

We paused to photograph the sunset, and then wandered on, talking about a hypothetical late summer vacation. Eventually Chris said he wanted to be quiet. We climbed over stone jetties and crossed private beaches until we reached the mouth of the Great Sippewissett Marsh. Here, beyond one last shingled house, the dune gives way to grassland, sand stretches out into the bay, and the sky opens overhead.

One of the unexpected parts of living on Cape Cod has been how settled it is. There are truly open spaces along the National Seashore, and tracts of woodland, bogs, and meadows in our town. But we live on a small street with faded grey pavement, the houses are mostly little ranches or capes. Everything feels close together, suburban. The mouth of this marsh is one of the only places nearby that I experience a sense of vastness.

Last night the receding tide had left pools and sandy islands far into the bay. I waded out to stand on one, letting the wind whip my hair, facing the setting sun. Chris wandered higher up on shore.

The sun was down and the sky was saturated orange, but I was restless. I kept taking pictures with my phone, checking my messages.

We spent the last ten days in motion. We worked all last week and on Friday morning we drove to Providence and boarded a train bound for Washington D.C. When we planned this trip I expected the eight hour journey would give me a wealth of time to work, read, and journal. My most recent travel by rail was in Europe and I’d forgotten how much Amtrak trains shake. I finished my work and then retreated into an audiobook. I arrived exhausted.

For the first time in more than twenty years of traveling to the Capitol, the humidity there was lower than on Cape Cod. We were prepared for sticky, oppressive heat. Instead it felt like a reprieve. We spent the weekend with friends, eating and walking. We took daily naps. On Sunday we were in the Natural History Museum looking at gleaming slices of meteorites when we heard that Joe Biden had withdrawn from the presidential race. It was strange to step out onto the National Mall, just after reading that news.

On Monday, Chris took the train home and I got off in New York City to visit more friends and to see Illinoise—a musical based on the Sufjan Stevens album—with my sister Abby. The show was a marriage of modern dance and songs I’ve loved for almost half my life. Casmir Pulaski Day is possibly more devastating than ever before when paired with ballet. We emerged from the St. James Theatre wrung out.

After, Abby and I stood at West 28th and Broadway eating ice cream and watching endless waves of people crossing the street, hawkers trying to get them to join open-top bus tours, rickshaws adorned with blue lights and blasting music, and screens flashing images of the new Twister movie, Lion King musical, and videos of Karlie Kloss working out. We laughed when one advertised BritBox.

I felt the vulnerability I always do in a crowd and a sense of awe that this goes on, this crush of humans, mostly safely, every night of the year. We went back to our friends’ house and went to bed. It was still early, but we had a morning train to catch.

On the beach last night, my brain felt busy as Times Square itself, sharp with bright and urgent fragments. As the sky faded we walked back from the marsh. I kept trying to start a conversation with Chris. I tried to be quiet myself, to get my mind to latch on to something, to listen to the pull of the waves, to study the scatter of stones along the shore, to feel the wet sand with each step. I could not.

Now it is Friday morning. This is the time I’ve set aside to read and write. I am home with the dogs. We’re in the living room with a window open to a breeze, looking out at the sway of tall grasses and hydrangeas in the front garden. I’ve turned off my phone and put it in another room. I keep wanting to go turn it back on, for no particular reason. Each time someone walks by on our street Penny and Lance are on their feet, alert, barking. I talk them down, make them lie down again, and get back to writing.

When I am tired I often feel the urge to keep moving. I make long lists of chores or exercise. But what I need is to stop. My mind will slowly sift through the chatter, my body will find its equilibrium. That is what I hope to do this weekend.

I hope that you find quiet, too.

With love,
Hannah