…taken from my hand-written journal during our electronics-free stay on Cape Cod… For a week near the beach, I want to be in a simple place. Where sand tracked in is OK, for it doesn’t get caught in the grout of tiled kitchen floors. Because on the kitchen floor is a sheet of vinyl, tacked down only on the doorway side that adjoins the living room. And the living room is covered with an area rug, the color of sand. It’s made to welcome a bit of the outdoors in. No fuss in keeping grit from underfoot.
This place has felt the sea. They’ve ridden tandem for many years.
At 3 a.m. the first night, I awoke cold. I had shut the windows at 11 p.m., but the chill from the ocean air was still around us. Coming up from the floorboards? In through the cracks around windows and doors?
I bumbled around in the dark looking for more blankets. In my walk end to end of this little cottage, I felt the years of ocean life rolling under my feet. The gentle up down patter of the floor boards with an occasional fall under the vinyl in the kitchen. And an even more noticeable rise in the bathroom. The floors ebbed and flowed reflecting the same patterns a minute’s walk away.
Not finding any blankets inside, I went barefoot through dewy grass out to the van for extra covers. My first step outside smelled like a walk into a bag of fresh clams. The cool air was bursting with ocean. I grabbed two fleece blankets from the van and tucked them over the boys. I put a sweatshirt on and went back to bed.
By 10 a.m. the next day, the smell had changed to ripe old clams baking in the sun, brought on by warming dampness.
Poking around that morning, I discovered when the bedroom door is open…