Cape Cod Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Old-Fashioned Sunday

Sometimes I find myself thinking about the way things used to be when I was growing up and I’m caught up short by just how much things have changed. For me, at least. And while I realize that’s a choice, it’s still an enormous comfort to every once in a while allow myself to experience an old-fashioned Sunday.

And actually, that’s not even accurate. I’m actually thinking about an old-fashioned summer.

I’ve written at least tangentially about some of my memories of spending summers on Cape Cod, and the lasting love I have in my heart for Nauset Light, in Eastham. Situated just down the sandy back road from our cottage, this lighthouse was (and will always be) known in our household as the “I-love-you” light.

But it occurred to me the other day as I was cruising down the potato chip aisle at the local Giant (obviously having taken a wrong turn, of course), that I don’t think I ever mentioned that the red and white iconic lighthouse on all Cape Cod potato chip bags is ‘my’ Nauset Light. It’s funny how you can look at something year after year and, because it’s familiar, somehow end up no longer seeing it.

For whatever reason, I suddenly saw it again – as Nauset Light – and a flood of memories came rushing back.

Perry Mason, too

Maybe it’s because Karl and I have been watching the new Perry Mason series on HBO that also has me strolling down this particular memory lane. (It’s a great series. I highly recommend it!)

My memories of summer from age 4 to 21 all include staying at that very same cottage on the Cape. During those intervening years, but especially when I was in those betwixt and between years of 12-13, I started to prowl through the myriad paperback books that lined the shelves of the cottage’s tiny, pine-paneled bedrooms. Amongst those shelves were a number of books by Erle Stanley Gardner, featuring Perry Mason.

I can honestly say I doubt I would ever have read any of those books had they not been part of the relatively meager selection of paperbacks available to my voracious appetite to read, read, read. (I ask you, can you think of many pleasures in life that surpass a beach read that you simply cannot put down? No. I thought not.)

And that’s part of the difference between then and now that catches me up short. Bookstores were few and far between. Access to books was nothing like it is today. This was before Borders and Barnes & Noble became ubiquitous parts of our culture, not to mention decades before Amazon was even a glint in Bezos’s eye. Indeed, one highlight I remember about the Cape was attending the local historical society’s book sale, just across the road from the (then) newly built Cape Cod National Seashore Center, where they would put out row after row of folding banquet tables in the hot sun filled with donated books of all sorts.

A Reminder Today

Which brings me to why I titled this post “Old-Fashioned Sunday.” Karl and I got up early today and mowed our lawn first thing, in spite of how dew-laden the grass was. We knew the day was going to become unbearable – and the forecast looks like tomorrow will be even worse.

After we got that task under our belt, I allowed myself to immerse myself in a book I’ve been nursing in the wee hours of the morning, after completing my blog post each night. Ah! What a great joy. I simply love giving myself enough uninterrupted time with a book to become completely consumed by the characters.

And that was my old-fashioned Sunday. A lazy, hot, humid day spent draped on our porch’s glider, ensconced amongst oversized pillows, listening to the birds and the wind chimes, entranced by a book.

It occurs to me only now that the only thing that might have made this experience even better would’ve been some Cape Cod potato chips!

(T-488)

Nauset Light – Photo: trip advisor.com

Vacation Memories

I confess. I’m feeling a little cranky right now.

It’s almost the middle of July and we have no plans for a vacation in the foreseeable future. That fact, in and of itself, is not all that big of a deal for me. It’s not as if I’ve felt a sense of deprivation if we didn’t take a vacation every year – and there have been a decent number of years when we didn’t ‘go anywhere’ or ‘do anything’ of note.

No…

The dissatisfaction underlying my grousing is the distinct lack of an opportunity (either in the recent past or the foreseeable future) to languorously curl up with a good book and just read and read and read and read until I’m not quite sure who I am anymore. Then fall asleep. And then read and read and read some more upon waking.

My fondest memories of summer vacations were days on end spent reading book after book with no agenda but to move on to the next one.

Summers on Cape Cod

I was lucky enough, being the youngest of five kids, to have parents who, by the time they had me, were able to afford to take quite a lovely vacation. We rented a cottage from family friends near Nauset Light, in North Eastham, Massachusetts. We first started going to this cottage back in 1962 or 1963 – which would mean I was three or four years old – and I’m pretty sure we only stayed a long weekend. Or a week at the most.

It felt perfect to me, although I always, without fail, cried a bit when vacation would end (regardless of how long it had been), when I ‘had to say goodbye to the ocean.’

The Cliff

One of the most remarkable memories from those earliest of years is how the cottage was situated only yards from the edge of the sandy cliff that plunged – 80 feet? – down to the beach. Someone had affixed a rope to a spike at the top to help people climb up the cliff from the beach (a reality that would cause environmentalists nowadays to blanch).

Anyway, as a little kid, I remember easily scampering up the cliff without the aid of the knotted rope.

Another absolutely precious memory from those vacations (which extended right up to and beyond when I was 21 and went to that same cottage with Karl on our honeymoon), was Nauset Light. (Believe it or not, this is the very same light that is featured on all the bags of Cape Cod Potato Chips.)

Photo: Sandboard.com

Nauset Light

Back when we first started spending time at the Cape, every dusk, the light would come on. It would blink three times, then a ‘pause’ would occur as the lights rotated around, and then another three blinks…over and over again. The rhythm of the light was wonderfully reassuring, especially since my mother called it the “I – love – you” light.

I’m sure she started the tradition of watching those three strong beams of light gliding steadily and relentlessly out across the waves, one-two-three, then sweeping across the tops of the pine trees behind the cottage, and began the tradition of saying, “I…love…you!” while sitting with me. She soon extended that delightful while holding my nieces, as they gradually came upon the scene three and then four years later.

It became a maternal tradition within our family, whenever a baby or toddler would cry or become anxious in the middle of the night, to stand outside in the fragrant sea breeze, baby on hip, swaying in that way that just happens, listening to the waves of the Atlantic crashing on the shore. And we would wait for it, wait for it… then blink! Blink! Blink!

“I. Love. YOU!” Chortles of delight eventually gave way to murmured repeats of the affectionate declaration, then slowly, slowly eyelids would reluctantly close.

Reading

Finally. Before I took this meander down memory lane, I began this post thinking about the absolute indulgence of reading my fill of book after book while spending time at the Cape. Now I’m filled with memories of my mom. From my love of reading to the I Love You light, I miss her so much.

I can’t remember the last time I just had days stretched out before me when I could read to my heart’s content and not feel the pull to pay attention to anyone or anything other than what the next chapter might reveal. What a luxury. What an opportunity for indulgence in one of my favorite pastimes.

I wonder if I’ll ever experience that again.