Right before sunset, a few friends from the neighboring shacks stopped by for an import cocktail hour, spent by the shore and looking out over the ocean waiting for the whales to breach. We watched their spouts blow plumes of water spray into the air, then saw their tales curve up before disappearing below. If you watched the same space you would see them breach – rising into the air and splashing down with majestic abandon. Here, at the edge of the world, it felt like a bridge to a better place. Maybe that was God. Maybe it was grace. 

As the gathering dispersed, JoAnn, Tyler and Kevin and I made our way to the canopied area looking over the shore to watch the sun go down. This was such a special gift, and we thanked JoAnn for bringing us all this way to make it happened. Later we would do our best to thank Dave and Francois, but words and little gifts can in no way match the gratitude we felt for being brought into this wondrous circle. 

JoAnn had predicted this visit would change our souls, touching us in a way that only a brush with the sublime could do. After almost twenty-five solid years of friendship, to discover such a place of peace together will be one of the blessings and highlights when we look back at our lives together. 

We lead very different lives than we did all those years ago, and finding ourselves at this perfect place was a fitting moment of serenity after all the torture and tumult of getting through our 20’s and 30’s. In some ways, all our restless searching and substitutes for love were destined to bring us here. And boy was it worth it. 

We joined Dave and Francois in the main shack for a delicious dinner by candlelight. Breaking bread with new friends and old is surely one of the happiest ways of sharing an evening. Backed by a rising moon, and the sounds and scents of the sea, our time in such serenity was coming all-too-quickly to its close. 

We returned to our little house, retiring to bed happily spent and satiated by all the beauty we had feasted upon in a single day. Leaving the windows open, a light breeze carried the sea air through the room, while the sound of the waves lulled us into a slumber. 

“The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

The next morning I woke before dawn, drawn by the sea to where the sun would rise. Another day would begin. Another set of eyes would survey this scene. Another group of seals would swim along the shore. 

A pocketful of sea stones would be my only amulets to return to this enchanted place. 

At the top of one of the dunes, they had set up a canopied space for four loungers looking over the ocean, and what felt like the world. The sea pulled us with a mesmerizing call, so we made our way down the dunes to the shore. Unbothered by people (thanks to the plovers and their blocked-off nesting space) we had the entire beach to ourselves – a previously unknown anomaly in all my years of visiting Cape Cod – and a treasure of tranquility. JoAnn, Tyler and Kevin walked slowly along the ocean, watching for the heads of seals to pop up and say hello, while empty exoskeletons of sea life littered the way. We paused to pick up a few select stones, and sat down to listen to the water roll in. 

There is a calm and grounding feeling that can only be elicited by a peaceful day at the ocean. It connects one to the universe in a way nothing else can approach. Perhaps it’s due to the waves, and the way the moon tugs at our waters, uniting and bonding celestial bodies as two parts in a much-grander scheme. Or maybe it’s the way that standing at the ocean’s edge literally grounds one, sinking our feet deeper into the sand, rooting us to a body of water that stretches to other continents.

Whenever I found myself in emotional trouble when I was younger and lived alone in Boston, I’d make my way to the harbor. There wasn’t a Seaport back then but it was enough just being near the dirty water and seeing the moon dance on the waves. Even in winter when the wind would whip the wires against their flagpoles, and the lonely clanging was all we could hear, it managed to be a calming influence. 

How far away such a cold scene felt from this sunny day at the shore. Stones and shells and seaweed glistened in the salty sea wash, sparkling in the sun and demanding closer inspection. We stayed there for a while, feeling like kids again, then made our way bak through the dunes to sunset and dinner…