A friend and I have returned to Bennington Vermont from a weekend trip to Wellfleet Massachusetts-- two towns west of Provincetown, for any of you not in the know. Her lover is returning Saturday. Meanwhile, I will probably stay here until Wednesday or so.
This is "Women's Week" at P-town. Friend has to work tomorrow so she was not able to stay. Friend rented a whole house in Wellfleet. The house itself was really pretty. I stayed in the loft where I had my own private deck looking out past the woods to some salt flats. After an excellent home-cooked meal, we went to the beach in P-town on Saturday evening where I took some cool pics and witnessed how difficult it is to walk in sand on crutches. I also yielded to the temptation and finally took off my sopping wet shoes and socks so I could wade in the low tide. That was boss!
Today my five lesbian friends, one straight woman friend, and I set out for the Wellfleet Flea Market. It was a pretty warm day as it turned out. I spent nine dollars for: one enamel bowl-- excellent for using as a kitty litter pan, one little souvenir plate from Valley Forge Pa. so I don't have to buy souvenirs during my probably trip there in June of '07, one sweet Chinese-looking blue and white medallion sort-of-thing {an artistic interpretation of peacocks?} on a blue string tied with a fancy knot which I am wearing around my neck right now {the only one like it that I have ever seen}, and one old "tea towel"-- that's what my gram always called them and she used them to keep rising bread warm-- with blue letters that say "Pullman Company" woven in.
I took a nap when we got back. At three-thirty, we all sat down to an early Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey with all of the trimmings. And football. I don't know who won the game as friend and I left at four-thirty with hopes of beating the traffic letting out from Gillette Stadium in Foxboro.
The soil on the cape is rather sandy as to be expected in a beach environment. I saw two pelicans setting on old tiers on the ride in along Route Six. I remembered the two weeks every summer I spent in Lavalette NJ with my mother, step-father, and [after she arrived] little half-sister.
Lavalette lacks the artsy feel of Provincetown but by its' own right remains fond in my memories for other reasons. The houses were mostly cement. We usually got to rent one of them though one miserable summer we had to stay in one room in Freda's Motel. I remember some vague reason given along the lines of the rentals all being gone or not having gotten to make arrangements soon enough. It was probably more associated with the rather active drinking that the semi-parentals were doing at that time.
The smell of the ocean air and the sound of the waves at the New Jersey shore I did not find this weekend. I did find the familiar scrub pines, sand, sailboats, and water. Lavalette also boasted a general store, a boardwalk [one without rides or attractions but possessing gazebos where we kids hung out and did things at night like smoke cherry cigars or ran to after the seance held under the lifeguard boat to try to call back JFK], a church with Bingo Night, and a nice restaurant. And kids. Folks round here might go to the Cape. Kids in Lavalette hailed primarily from other parts of New Jersey or from as far away as Poughkeepsie NY.
I wondered at all of it as I was sifting memories through my brain...and I think that probably the sea will claim me as her own. At some juncture, I will probably wind up living on an island that one has to take a ferry to or perhaps near a sandy little beach-- hopefully someplace warmer than Chebeague Island Maine and a bit more rugged, less commercialized than the Cape.
~sapphoq life
No comments:
Post a Comment