That Old Cape Magic (or 'What I Did During My Summer Vacation')

Chatham (top) and Provincetown

There's this scene in the opening chapter of Richard Russo's 2009 novel, "That Old Cape Magic":

The narrator recalls himself as a child in the back seat of his parents' car as they drove along Route 6. Crossing the Sagamore on their annual trip to Cape Cod, they would sing "That Old Black Magic," substituting "Cape" for "Black." If it was a prosperous and happy year, they would rent a place in Chatham.

2020 has not been a particularly prosperous and happy year for any of us, but I tried to capture some of that spirit with a recent short visit to the Cape with my wife to celebrate our anniversary. (Massachusetts being one of the few places we could visit from New Jersey without quarantining ourselves afterward.)

It indeed made us happy to visit Chatham for a few days, with a side trip to Provincetown. All around were subtle signs that reminded us how quickly things can change, and how lucky we are to have this moment in time together.

So I took more than a few photos. I wanted to try to capture happiness and preserve it... and share it here.

Four from Chatham: turkeys roaming the street... social distancing at the Queen Anne Inn... no lifeguard on duty, a lone photographer at sunrise on Lighthouse Beach... when I stopped running along the road to admire the distant haze and a fisherman in a pickup truck slowed down to call out, “It’s a California sunrise!” (referring to wildfires more than 3,000 miles away).

Four from Provincetown: Lobster Pot up close, Nancy in the distance... an artist working on the corner at the library, his signs say "Reality: still preferable to going online" and "No the world isn't broken. Yet..." the old stone sign for the Provincetown Theatre... unexpected greenery along Commercial Street.

Related post from six years ago today: "A Taste for Something Different"