Seaside Towns

So last week ended up being pretty boring. The rest of my family has jobs and schedules (that they need cars to get to!) and I am at home most of the time without a car or just waiting for someone to come home. It's not too bad but I know I could be making more of my time. On the plus side, I have been reading more and watching movies. I finally watched Spike Jonzes' Her (2013) and wow, it's just as good as I've heard it is. Every scene was so beautiful and I didn't even know Amy Adams was in it! She is a treasure and everything she is in gets 10x better instantly.

But to counterbalance my lazy days, this weekend was so busy and so great! On Saturday, Anna drove down to Boston and took Caitlin, Emma (who had come up for the weekend!), Madison, and I to the Cape! Caitlin's always wanted to go (we've been kicking around the idea of somehow driving all the way from Northampton on Mountain Day since last year), and even though we were worried about the traffic, it ended being not so bad and we got down there pretty quickly.

I am forever impressed by and grateful for my friends who can drive because even though I have my license, driving that much and that far on the highway for one day scares me so much, We Were All Love Anna Very Much.

And the beach was really nice! We went to this place in Chatham (blinking on the map below) called Lighthouse Beach. There was, shockingly, a white lighthouse right behind the beach. And some legend who lived right next to the beach was flying the One Piece flag, which raised so many questions that me and Caitlin will never know the answers to, but will wonder about forever hereafter.

The beach was really nice too. I didn't go much in the water because I thought it was pretty cold, but Caitlin, Emma, and Anna went in and seemed to have a pretty nice time (I will let Emma confirm or deny the veracity of that statement and issue a correction if necessary) and it was nice to be outside somewhere pretty like that for a while. I've never been to a beach on the Cape with such few rocks or seaweed by the water, the sand was so nice and there were a lot of little starfish that our friends yeeted into - I mean, gently returned to the ocean. And we had a lovely picnic of chips, fruits and veggies, and (only a little sandy) onion dip and hummus.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/DmfYLNBHRX8SKdtw5 (not sure if this link will work idk how to add videos on Wix someone please help)

I was really grateful to get to see these people during the summer and have such a memorable day :^)

The town itself was really nice too! I really love the towns down the Cape because it's such a different pace of life down there. Like the towns are all pretty much full of souvenir shops and ice cream parlors and salt water taffy candy stores and half of the restaurants are only open during the summer anyway. Last year, I went to Provincetown with my sister and our friends and I became really obsessed with the town. Like, it's probably the most popular vacation destination down the Cape during the summer, especially during Pride month, but during the winter it's like a ghost town. Half the population lives elsewhere and the people who do stick around town basically have their lives divided into two seasons - they spend the summers working in a restaurant or on the beach or in some other summer/beach-centric line of work, and during the off sesason they pick up work painting houses or doing construction where they can get it. Maybe two of the restaurants in town are even open, the rest all close at the end of the summer. It's such a different life.

It probably doesn't help that I've been reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential for the first time and really absorbing everything he says about Provincetown (it's where he got his start in the restaurant business, at a since-closed restaurant called the Dreadnaught). I may not talk about it a lot, but Anthony Bourdain is my biggest hero and the more I read his book the closer I come to dropping everything and moving to a seaside town and becoming a dishwasher and trying to work my way up and hack it through culinary school just like Bourdain. Well, I can dream about it at least.

This post got long like always (apologies for never being brief!) but speaking of Bourdain I've been obsessed with this quote recently and really trying to let its energy guide my thinking: "Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride."