Provincetown in mid-October feels like a piece of a favorite arrondissement in Paris if Paris were cradled by the sea. It possesses the same combination of narrow, winding streets, the surprises of small shops packed closely together, more coffeehouses than I could count, 19th century homes abounding in flowers, erotic emporiums, book stores, a theater, many galleries, a wonderful library, the Pilgrim Monument above it all like an attenuated Eiffel Tower, older LGBT couples, a restored City Hall where I spent 10 minutes taking photos for 8 women whose friendship and laughter was a balm. From Commercial Street, each turn west shows you the sea. Here, you are always aware of the sea and the light.
Conversation came easily — the hour I spent with Deborah at the Provincetown BookShop talking books and business; with Melanie and Mary and their rescued Greyhounds, including Zina, freed from Galgos; with Terry in City Hall, with couples walking the beaches and dunes, with Nettie here 25 years who works for 2 animal rescues. This is a town filled with women at ease.
But the light — Provincetown curls into this light — sea on 3 sides and thousands of acres of grass and dunes conspire to make a light that clings, a soft light, not quite buttery but without the sharp edges of Jersey Shore light. It gives a kind of consciousness to inanimate things — houses, rain gutters, facades. It sometimes reminds me of superbly staged cinema or theater lighting where each object creates its own effect. (Hopper 1, Hopper 2) (Meyerwitz)
Now walk along the sea here and turn inland and see nothing but dunes and grass and an incomparable blue sky. Again and again I found myself taking speechless 360 degree videos of the land and seascape to keep for all the days away from here. We watched gulls and gannets and gray seals, a northern Harrier hunting the Peaked Hill District, fish close to shore feeding in light struck silvering glitters. And always before you that space reaching out there to the curving horizon, whitecaps driving spume, the wind a constant, everything in motion but you who stand or sit amidst the grand good fortune of it all.
From the bluff in Truro where we stayed, we watched at sunset hundreds and hundreds of gulls flocking above us and beating their way across the bay to the lighthouse beach where they roost. To the north, Provincetown curves in a crescent of lights. Here, if only for a few days, the other world retreats and balance seems restored.
