Lighthouse Lane & Other Cape-isms

Love the comfort of familiar sights. Lighthouse Lane, Linda Lane. Tidy Monopoly-style cottages in Wellfleet with names like Coconut Telegraph.

I was at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary* [we just call it the Audubon] for two days in a row. Loved it. Especially the trail lingo: Bird Blind. Goose Pond. Observation Deck. Try Island Trail. Heath. Marsh Cabin.

Have walked these trails many times with H. and Figgy--with snow on the ground, in summer sun, in unexpected rain, with leaves underfoot. Have also walked them with our family and friends.

Our little girl has grown up on those trails. She embraced nature, loved its gift. The russet foxes, the tiny toads, the fiddler crabs. Now she is older and pulling away. I keep trying to remember that pulling away is a natural part of life, especially for teenagers.

Look at the horseshoe crab, all of those molting stages it goes through. From small and fragile, delicate, soft, all the way up to big, hard-shelled, tough enough to handle itself. Yet still uniquely beautiful, vulnerable as it navigates mean and calm waters. [But, wait, it never forgets its mother, right?] It's part of a cycle, as it should be.

But I want her to know that we are always there for her. I want to work hard to get through to her that I am always on her team. She wants to be viewed more like the emerging young adult she is. I am missing the jolly, unsinkable child in the aqua terrycloth Gap dress [bought on my lunch hour], who tried on my makeup and rifled through the jewelry and other pretty things on my dresser. I have to realize that the young woman in front of me is also blossoming, blooming, questioning--and trying things on. In her own way. She is she, she is not me. I want to remember that. It's hard.

Tomorrow it's clean the house and go home. I always hate that part. The sweeping, dust mopping, emptying the fridge, turning off the water and the power. My brother Will is a neatnik, and he might be here next. If we leave the place dirty, it won't go unnoticed.

So we have to mop the kitchen floor, dust the furniture, sweep up the sand from Coast Guard Beach.

And drive the 300 miles back home.

*Pictured above.