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Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Tag Archives: summer

A Visit to Sandy Hook National Park

07 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Home, Jersey Moments

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jersey, summer, travel

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My birthday wish this year included visiting Sandy Hook, a barrier spit and Jersey Shore National Park that my family frequented in our younger years. I remembered the long, flat, pale landscape sandwiched between the Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Smell of salt and pines and sand. Charming tide pools and holly trees.

But I’d forgotten the abundance of prickly pear cactus. The visage of old armaments.

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Remembered horseshoe crabs. Forgot fiddler crabs.

Remembered how the ocean pushes. Forgot how it pulls. Remembered seeming stability of sea-earth beneath a swimmer’s toes which can just . . . disappear.

Then, driving past blond, brick buildings, most now dilapidated beyond use, I remembered the smell of thick, shiny floor varnish, the sound of a wide, wooden door squeaking shut for the evening, warm light in a kitchen, and camp counselor taking time to be silly with just-me. I remembered the fierce bloom of affection for that person, those moments among preteen GirlScouts I met once then never again. The swoop of a windsurfing board catching wind to take my ten or eleven-year old body, long-limbed, nervous yet ecstatic, tacking across the water beneath a sky that stretched, pure blue, over everything.

There was the special treat of the holiday weekend: a Sandy Hook I’d misplaced, regained.

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Whole Heart Cape Cod with Librarytour Bonus

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Librarytour, With Friends

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Tags

book-love, summer, travel

My favorite way to travel is to someone. Beauty is in the eye of the person who loves, and what better method for cutting to the heart of a place than through the perspicacious perspective of a child of that place?

Cape Cod beach

This past August, I re-met Cape Cod, that supremely popular portion of Massachusetts famous for attracting throngs of respite-hungry tourists.

Phoebe's feet in the sand

Raised on the Jersey Shore, I generally feel I’ve seen the beach. Nothing new. Except, of course, there is always something new: sunset colors warming the slow waves over our toes, a diverse collection of sober revelers, singing around a fire in the sand, something about faith, humility, and togetherness.

And Provincetown . . . well P-town is unique. My Jersey childhood had me picturing this oft-mentioned resort town as one with wooden board walks dried ashy by salt, lined with arcade/casinos competing for attention with booming game soundtracks and the ping! of coins dropping.

Bike taxi in P-town

My Boston Pride experience inspired me to expect dudes in short-shorts with that strut. Yet, with its quaint sweetness, superb galleries, and narrow, semi-urban feel, P-town strayed from my expectations.

The biggest shock was the Provincetown Public Library.

Round window in P-town library

Boatman in the photo

Children's room lanterns

Small town libraries always have something interesting going on. Few, however, pack the sort of surprise that, in theory, could one day sail away. Crash right through those walls and down to sea.

Schooner bow

Schooner sail

Wave bookshelves

Schooner deck

Caro looking out

I was so impressed by the library’s holdings, a half-scale model of the Rose Dorothea Schooner completed in 1988, I barely searched for what have come to represent, to me, markers of a solid community resource.

I guess, sometimes, it’s okay to be swept away.

Phoebe is joyful at P-town library

Mwhaha! I love a library!

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