For two days straight, the wind blew shaking the windows in their frames. The howling through the trees surrounding our house on Cape Cod kept me up at night. The entire atmosphere was charged with the energy this wind had created. Two nights ago, my partner lay next to me sleeping, and I lay on my back staring at the ceiling wide awake. I was calm and safe inside, but there were moments when I felt like the wind might just pick up this house and blow it over Cape Cod Bay out into the open sea. I wasn't afraid, I was awake.
The howling, whipping wind felt appropriate for what is going on on the OUTSIDE, out there in the world. I feel the heavy energy of the world out on the periphery. I'm not close to it, being that I'm choosing to live here out on a sand bar in the ocean. The ocean has a way of softening the sharp edges. It cleanses and reshapes. It has a way of taking all that's solid and stuck and making it flow again. I couldn't think of a better place to be right now, honestly. Nature speaks to me all the time out here. It's where I get my news these days.
I haven't checked the election results. I have no idea who is president of our country. I'm choosing to linger in the unknown. It's the only place any of us can really be sure of anyway. What do we know? Looking to nature for the news this morning, like I usually do, the headline to match the experience was CALM AFTER THE STORM.
I woke up to sun streaming through all 6 large, bedroom windows. Our room sits up high in the tree tops on the second floor. I could see blue birds and finches happily fluttering about the tops of the trees singing their songs. My boyfriend was already downstairs brewing coffee and singing a tune. He called up to me, "Hey, wanna go for a walk on the beach?" I pulled on some jeans, a fleece sweatshirt, wool socks and headed downstairs. We drank coffee together and chatted, but he soon realized there wasn't time for a beach walk, he had to head out to work. He's been working with his college friend in his carpentry business for the last two months since we got here. It's one of the reasons we were able to move here for the off-season. My job at Edmonds College in Washington State went online after the pandemic hit, so I can work from anywhere. Scott was finishing up carpentry jobs in Washington, so he was in a good position to move. So, at the end of August, we packed up all of our worldly possessions, some went into a tiny storage unit, one for each of us, and the rest traveled across county with us in Scott's truck. I sold my car to come here. Being car-less has forced me to use my body to get around and to be creative. I walk or bike lots of places. Thankfully, we live near a beach and there is a 26-mile bike trail near our house that goes to several nearby towns. Scott has been loving working outside in Wellfleet, Eastham and Orleans on the Lower Cape. Most of the home owners are gone for the season, so they spend their time sanding and refinishing decks and siding, pulling up beach stairs, putting storm windows on houses and repairing this or that. He sometimes sends me pictures of where he is working: a gorgeous house right on the cliff of a beach or an artsy house hidden in the trees. It's really a dream come true for both of us to be here. The fact that Scott's 96-year-old mom lives in Sandwich and that his brother and cousin live out here, along with several friends, made it easy for us to come.
And our house, well it's also a dream. A dream that we are currently living in anyway. We found a longterm rental in Eastham, near the beach that normally goes for $12,000 a month in the high season. We got it for 10 times less in the off-season. It was cheaper for us to come here than rent in Seattle. Our house is big for the two of us. But after living in tiny, one-room basement dwellings together, it is so nice to have all the space. We have not one, but three bathrooms. We are loving every minute of being here. I love the ocean being so close. I love that I am living on a sand bar with wild nature all around.
So Scott headed off to work and I wandered down the seashell path from our house to the beach.
All the beach stairs along our private beach have been hoisted up for the season. The windows on the houses facing the bay have been boarded up and storm-proofed. I have to walk the wooden stairs halfway down to a rock landing and then scramble down over boulders the rest of the way to the beach.
I can't believe that on October 22nd, I launched myself off one of those boulders into the warm bay waters where I lay on my back for what seemed like an hour, letting the buoyant salt water hold me up. Now, a chill was in the air and I donned a long, lightweight down jacket. The sun was bright in the sky and and the waning full moon was still out. I stumbled down onto the gold sand. The water had soft ripples, but otherwise was flat and calm. I walked down on the sand. The tide was coming in. By 1pm, it would be up to the beach steps. The calm in the air was so gentle. The seagulls sat motionless on the beach and little sand pipers were actively eating bugs and algae by a patch of beach grass. A rippled sand bar stretched out for a mile. I walked out on it mesmerized by the intricate, grooved pattern in the sand. How these patterns form and then are washed away was symbolic to me. The sand glistened in the warm sun and little gold specks popped out. I picked up a handful of these tiny grains and let them sift through my fingers. So small, these grains of sand are, that make up the beauty of the the beach. The wild ocean and winds were always molding, shaping and changing the environment. Who knows, really, if this little sand bar known as Cape Cod would be here in the future? Well, it's here now. And I am here now.
Somehow I was able to ride the wind out and enjoy the calm after the storm. Our house is still standing and there wasn't any devastation. I knew that if I went INSIDE, deep within myself, I'd be just fine. I didn't need to get pulled into its fury or curse its sound. I could listen to it objectively, knowing that it wouldn't last forever. None of this is forever. And that, somehow brought me great peace and allowed me to step out into the calmness of the day today, fully present and fully alive. What a gift it is to be here now.
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