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We all have that place. The one we return to…maybe every year, maybe every ten. It sustains and restores and comforts us. For me, that place is Cape Cod. The drive over the Sagamore Bridge is more than crossing the Cape Cod Canal. It’s a trip into the past, the present, and even the future. I see so much when my family returns each year…

I see the pink beachfront motel in South Yarmouth my grandmother, Nana, owned. It’s the place my parents met in 1954. My 22 year-old father drove a convertible and one day stopped to help a middle-aged woman load boxes. “Would you like to meet my daughter?“ the woman asked. “No, thanks,” my father replied. She persisted and he met the daughter, a lovely 20 year-old brunette. They married three months later.

I see the office in the motel where I spent two summers as a teenager, helping Nana. I see myself walking her beach, hearing transistor radios, and smelling Coppertone suntan lotion. I hear Nana calling to me across the sand, coifed in her usual blond up-do. “Law!” I see honeymooners, families, and couples frolicking in the blue-green water. At night, I smell pink petunias from a planter in front of the motel. Their scent seems impossibly romantic.

In 1980, Randy and I honeymoon in Nana’s Windmill cottage down the street on Bass River. I see us fishing off the dock and laughing and drinking the champagne Nana left in the fridge, feeling so grown up with our Asti Spumante. One day we sit outside and watch next door as two little boys shriek with delight jumping off their dock into the river. We don’t know it, but we’re seeing our future.

Years later we rent that same house where our own two sons and their cousin take their first tentative leaps into the water. Over the years I see Fourth of July parties with wide-eyed children holding sparklers. I see blue popsicles and green floats shaped like alligators. I see trips to the nearby arcade, the pancake house, and Provincetown.

I see our families visit with parents and brothers and sisters. I see my father rushing to jump in the river before he’s unpacked his bags, his face glowing with happiness. His grandsons jump in beside him. I see my mother taking the boys for ice cream when the Good Humor truck pulls into the parking lot next door.

Time passes. I see teenagers with headphones and MTV and heart-stopping back flips off that same dock. I see illicit gulps of beer, and fishing in the river, and hear “Green Day” from IPods. Now those boys are tall, bearded men. My sons, and their cousin drink whiskey and discuss co-workers and bosses and cost-of-living increases. They still jump off the dock, but their movements are more cautious than the fleet-footed little boys of youth. All have become musicians and, along with Randy, bring out guitars, basses, and banjos. The air fills with music and makes me happy.

I see our younger selves next door, watching. Randy and I have grown older too – slower, hair grayer, no longer the young, nubile newlyweds. Like the river we love with its beautiful sunsets and swooping gulls, time keeps flowing…at least for us. The water has stayed the same over the years, which I find soothing.

I see the cemetery where Nana is buried. Mom and I visit and lay a pink rose on her gravestone. Her motel is now painted a sensible gray, bought out years ago by one of the big resorts. The planters full of petunias are gone, replaced by parking spaces.

Dad died four years ago, but his presence is everywhere – in the water he sprinted to jump in, the lobsters he ate, and the fishing boats, cabin cruisers, and sailboats he loved to watch.

I also see the future. I see a time when Randy and I will be gone and hope that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will come to love the Cape the way we have.

Before long, I see the Sagamore Bridge ahead as we drive home and feel that usual twinge of sadness. I hate leaving. But deep down, I know if I lived here full-time, the magic would fade. Like the mythical Brigadoon, Cape Cod only exists for a little while.

As we cross the canal, back to the real world, I always give a silent thank you.

With God’s grace we’ll be back next year.

 

Do you have a special place? Comments are always welcome and if you like, please share.

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Comments(38)

  1. Such a beautifully written post, Laurie. Thank you for sharing the Cape with us. I’ve never been but through you, I already love everything about it. The way your parents met is almost a storybook romance, the kind we wonder if they really happen. xoxox, B

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Brenda, You should go to the Cape. I know you’d love the light and beauty. Yes, my parents were very lucky to find each other so young and have it last!

  2. I wrote a post about the same subject except I’ve never actually been to mine lol.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Rena, I will have to read this! Sounds like a fantasy locale.

    • Pam

    • 5 years ago

    Beautifully written. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this post. My special place is a beach in northern Florida – my happy spot where I walk for miles, watching dolphins and sandpipers and pelicans. And you are correct – if I lived along this beautiful stretch of sand, it would not be as special. I pinch myself whenever I am there! Happy holiday weekend….

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Pam, Florida has some incredible beaches. I don’t blame you wanting to go back. So lovely.

  3. Wonderful. Love the memories.

    Just back in June, I made one of my occasional trips to the small town in Michigan that’s been the center of celebrations and gatherings for my dad’s side of the family for as long as I can remember. My aunt and uncle’s farm with the old old barn where I remember looking for kittens in the hayloft on rainy days when I was little is still in the family – my aunt and uncle moved to a smaller house in town and turned over the farm to my cousin and her husband when they moved back there with their kids and it’s all pretty much the same (although the hayloft where I used to look for kittens to play with has been re-done as a party space). My cousin’s son and daughter also stayed in town – the daughter is married with kids of her own now, so there are 4 generations of family there in the same place and it’s just so amazing going to a place where my memories are so rich and deep and go back so far.

    The only other place in the world that has the same resonance is of course Hawai’i, where I grew up from kindergarten until we left in my junior year in high school (an awful time to move). My first trip back there when my parents retired back there was nothing short of magical – the leaving was a terrible uprooting, and I spent my first years on the mainland (high school and college) yearning for home. When I got off of that plane that first time back and smelled the island air – oh, I can’t even describe the joy.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Bonnie, I can’t imagine growing up in Hawaii! How cool. I also love the idea of looking for kittens in haylofts. So sweet.

  4. Wow, you sure do capture the magic of Cape Cod … and that special place of family and memory we all have, or wish we had.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Tom, Thank you so much!

  5. Dang! That made me want to cry. What an idyllic way to spend the summer. My family is spread all over the place. Once in a while, we get to go to my brother’s house in Napa and sometimes go sailing in San Francisco Bay.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Rebecca, Napa ain’t bad either! I love California, although lately that poor state is being besieged by Mother Nature.

  6. How lucky you are to have such a special place full of family history and memories! The only time I’ve visited Cape Cod (which is on the other side of the country from us) was in the off-season, but it was lovely. So different looking than our west coast beaches.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Janis, Yes, California beaches are bigger and more majestic, but there’s something about a Cape Cod beach that tugs at me. Maybe because it comes with so many memories.

  7. Beautifully, beautifully written! Brought tears to my eyes. I love posts like this! Growing up, my family never really had a ‘place’ apart from a cabin on the lake for a couple of years. Daddy liked to travel, so we did. We rambled across the US and made memories.
    My own family was raised in our time-share in Banff, Alberta. How we looked forward to that week! Now some of them have bought in the same complex, but everyone else is still very careful (and vocal) about remembering whose turn it is to stay with Gramma and Grampa this year!

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Diane, Sounds like you had many wonderful places you and your family visited. How fun. That cabin on the lake sounds beautiful as well.

    • Kevin

    • 5 years ago

    Laurie, your exquisite essay brought tears. In 1960 my family moved from Fusa, Japan to East Falmouth where I began the sixth grade. We lived there for four years of my transition from “little kid” to teenager. We moved to the Midwest while I finished high school but each summer I returned to West Yarmouth to teach sailing and ecology to Boy Scouts. The “Cape Magic” never left me and the first place I took my new bride many years later was back there, all the way to P’Town. I dream of it still – the marshes, the beaches, working at Woods Hole, building my first boat and sailing my younger brother halfway to Edgartown before better judgement cut in – in March. Thank you for bringing those memories crashing back.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Kevin, So glad this resonated with you. It sounds like you have wonderful Cape memories. There is a certain magic to the place, no doubt. Hope you and yours get to go back soon.

  8. What beautiful memories. I love that your Nana persisted in introducing her daughter to the kind boy who stopped to help her move boxes. I wonder if she had a vision of the future and saw it all laid out in front of her if she could just get that nice boy to meet her daughter.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Jennifer, You never know. Nana could be pretty wily!

  9. Precious memories! Some day I’ll make it to the Cape. My “place” is at the cottage we owned while we were raising our kids. I don’t think the new owners would appreciate us going back every year, but we still enjoy the memories and the neighbors who are our forever friends.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Ellen, You have to come to the Cape some day. Its so lovely, but it sounds like you have your own special place, which is wonderful.

  10. This is such a thought provoking post… I was going to say my Hometown and yet maybe not. I really do have to think about it because I have so many.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Carol, You travel so much, I can see how you’d have many places. Truly a citizen of the world.

  11. Three months later they were married – I love that! My hubby and I were engaged within three months – when you know you know! Sounds like such a special place for you.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Rachael, Cape Cod is wonderful. And yes, my parents had a quick engagement, but long marriage! They were lucky. Sounds like you are too!

  12. My sacred place is on a mountain. Not necessarily the mountain top but on a boulder, trail, overlook or somewhere I can touch the essence of it. It calls to my soul and I answer. Thanks for a lovely post.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 5 years ago

      Margie, Love that. In Connecticut, we don’t have mountains, but the ocean does the same thing. The mountain sounds like a beautiful place of refuge.

  13. How I love these memories, Laurie! They shine like a beacon through our ‘ordinary’ don’t they? Always beckoning. Always promising.
    I feel the same way traveling TO Banff. Hopeful. Excited. I know that in one week, I will be returning to my ordinary but in that week I will have crammed many more wonderful memories and all is well.
    I love these special family places!
    Beautifully done!

      • Laurie Stone

      • 4 years ago

      Diane, Thanks so much. I love the way these summer places can be passed down through the generations. My kids are the fourth in my family to enjoy Cape Cod.

  14. Ah, still love this.

    Was hoping for one of my 5-year high school reunion trips to Hawaii this year (no family there any more, my folks moved to North Carolina, but I’ve been trying to get myself back there occasionally) – when it was getting pretty clear that that was most likely not going to happen, I’d thought maybe I could go to Michigan for a family gathering on a lake – not going anywhere now, though. Maybe Thanksgiving in Michigan if this stupid plague has settled down some, sigh.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 4 years ago

      Bonnie, So frustrating, the whole thing. I’m already getting nervous about Thanksgiving. Will we all have to skip it this year or stay socially distant, a tough thing around a holiday table.

  15. This was so beautiful. Thanks for sharing your beautiful memories. This summer is going to be weird without my mom. We always went to go visit her after camp let out. She’s gone now…and the pandemic. The world has changed.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 4 years ago

      Lauren, I’m actually glad my father and my husband’s parents never had to go through this pandemic. I guess there’s something good in passing. You’re free of the never ending drama of Planet Earth.

  16. I so needed this glimpse today, Laurie! So much has been ‘put on hold’ this past year and one of those things is our carefree family week in Banff. Oh, we went, but I was so concerned about social distancing and who was where and cohort-ing with whom that I’m quite sure I sucked all the fun out of it for everyone.
    Sigh. Maybe this year will restore some of the joi de vivre!

      • Laurie Stone

      • 3 years ago

      Diane, So glad you have beautiful Banff. We’re going to the Cape this year, and already sense, it’ll be different.

  17. I have so many places like that> Maui, Big Sur, even London, Paris…they all feed my soul.

      • Laurie Stone

      • 3 years ago

      Carol, Can’t wait to get back to them, although have to admit, home also fills the soul.

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