Summer of 2004
by Jane Paznik-Bondarin
I
walked for two hours this morning, twice my usual time. The day dawned
particularly sweet: cool air, abundant sun with a sheen of haze to blunt
its full power, and the Atlantic was at low-tide.
I altered my route. Turning right out the front door, I walked along Salt Marsh Lane, glimpsing the ocean between the houses until I came to Good Harbor Beach. At 8 a.m. I had it to myself. Well, not quite. There were perhaps a dozen seagulls, three joggers, and an old couple strolling hand-in-hand. The joggers smiled or mouthed “good morning” as they strode past. You have to love a place where even joggers share the glorious morning.
Because the tide was out, I could walk out to Salt Island and inspect the rocks and vegetation. I don’t think I’ve done that since the kids were small. I walked back along Salt Marsh, admiring the houses, then down Twilight—my street, this summer—and onto Long Beach. I walked across its three-quarter-mile expanse, back again, and then decided to walk across another time.
I didn’t want to go inside. Long Beach is my beach, the repository of thirty-five years of summer memory. The lighthouses of Thatcher’s Island are the beacons guiding me home, and there’s “Arley’s Bridge.” I always knew when to turn to see my late Arley striding across it onto the beach, tanned, healthy, sweaty but exhilarated from his walk and ready for a quick swim before he took over building sand castles with the kids. I am glad to be living on the other side of the beach without the bridge in my direct line of sight, but I like knowing I can find him when I want to chat.
It wasn’t just the loveliness of the day that kept me out that morning. I had begun my parting ritual. In three days I would leave. Just as an edgy July was turning into a pull-out-all-the-stops August, I would have to leave Cape Ann and return to New York City. Every parting is hard, this maybe the hardest.
Writing from here a few years ago, I told a friend that I saw myself ending my days “an old lady alone by the sea.” She wrote back and said, “Oh, sweetie, someday we all will be old ladies alone by the sea.” Perhaps. I have not been alone this summer. On my morning walks, my characters come to talk to me. From another time and another place, they let me hear their voices on this beach. They tell me their stories, surprising me with what they say and do, what they desire and fear. They nudge me down paths I never thought to take, and then I spend the rest of the day trying to be faithful to them, to get them right. They correct my direction the next morning.
Will I have to leave them here? I need this morning hour to focus my thoughts, but how can I without the ocean? I can buy a CD of ocean sounds. I can buy a candle redolent of the sea. But how do I replicate the air wafting toward the beach and changing ever-so-slightly as I round the cove. Every morning, I walk from the south side of Long Beach, which is in Gloucester, to the north side, which is in Rockport. When I turn to retrace my path, the smell of the water and the feel of the northeast wind at my back fill me with longing even while I am still here.
If
you want to enjoy the beauty of Cape Ann, you might want to stay at the
Cape Ann Motor Inn, directly on Long Beach: http://www.capeannmotorinn.com.
For a longer stay, contact Atlantic Vacation Homes: http://www.atlanticvacationhomes.com.
Jane
Paznik-Bondarin's heart lives in New York City.
Her email is: 