Early last week I spent a few days on the cape. The weather was so frightful even I couldn't brave the beach for long. It felt like a full blown nor'easter though there was little mention of it in the news. At night the wind howled outside my bedroom window like a sad, sad woman. It was the bleakest weather I have ever seen on the cape; when the elements we love so much in summer take on a new and frightening dimension. These photos of Nauset Beach in Orleans do not convey the raw force of the waves; they were breaking out as far as the eye could see. Row after row of a roiling sea. It seemed the white foam stretched to infinity. The beach had been so battered there was no where to walk and high tide was a still a few hours away. It was one of the most thrilling spectacles of nature I have ever seen.
I was the only person on the beach. If a rogue wave swept me into the sea no one would have been the wiser; I stood back respectfully and watched in awe. I thought of my son, Peter, now in snowy Aspen. We spent so many days together here this past summer. He surfed and I collected wampum to make into earrings. I wished he could see this Nauset!
No one in my family understands why I am so enthralled with the cape off season. There are a million reasons. This was one more.
I get it. You have a deep love for this place. Not just when it's calm and warm but a love for the whole of it. Like a person.
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