How I Know I'm at the Cape

1. Surfboards on cars.
2. Surfers in black wetsuits.
3. Rafts for sale along Route 6. This year's fun shapes include a guitar and breakfast eggs.
4. Taffy by the pound at the Red Barn.
5. I felt muscles I haven't used in a while when squatting to position and retrieve my purple ball at mini golf. [Purple was the only Lilly Pulitzer color left; Dan chose green and Punch chose sunny yellow.]
6. Breakfast and a latte at The Wicked Oyster in Wellfleet. The garden is as pretty as ever. I want that garden, with its purple butterfly bush, orange day lilies, tall snapdragons, Such a colorful canvas. So fertile and rich.
7. Kettle ponds and swaying marshes and crashing ocean waves.
8. Lines for ice cream: sundaes, cones, cups, milkshakes.
9. Wildly overpriced items at the general stores and chic little markets. I mean $2 for a peach in Truro and almost $4 for a small jar of Fluff in North Eastham. I was glad another market had the Fluff for $1.85. It was literally highway robbery at that first place, to quote my mother.
10. Flashbacks of times here with my Dad, and with Dan and small Figgy. That little mirthful redhead.
11. No streetlights when I walk Sug, just clear moonlight,
12. Signs for lobster rolls, fried clams, breakfast buffets, donuts, fresh catches, camp stores, bike rentals and fudge.
13. Families, families everywhere. I clearly remember being age 33, married 3.5 years, yearning to be a mother and feeling like a fish out of water with empty arms, no baby to cradle. Even the marshmallows at the general store taunted me--they were for moms with smore-loving kids, not for me. Then soon enough she came, a blessing, and we explored the Cape with our Figgy, often on the back of a bike. We biked the Rail Trail and drove and/or ferried to Nantucket, Provincetown, Chatham, Brewster, Orleans, Wellfleet. We saw foxes at sunset. We were young and our lives were full and ripe.

Good night for now.