Time and Tide

“Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it’s gone” --- Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi”

 

I’m in Wellfleet for a three day weekend in the middle of September.  The weather is gorgeous, and Cape Cod is simply a beautiful place to be this time of year.  My colleagues at work, knowing only that much, told me to “have a great time.”  Truth is, I’m not having a bad time, but the purpose of my trip is to begin the arduous task of painting our house.  This will be a multiple-weekend undertaking, as I’m working alone, and, well, I’m not a house painter. 

My only companion this weekend is my faithful, elderly dog.  As she’s not much of a conversationalist, my mind wanders as I work.  We bought this house thirteen years and a lifetime ago.  Our two daughters were young then, just four and seven.  We’ve had many good times here, but as time has passed, things have changed.  Our kids no longer care to visit the Cape, save for the occasional trip-with-boyfriend-sans-parents.  I still love the place, but increasingly my time here is spent in solitude.

Earlier this year, I made what I thought was a wise economic decision to sell my boat.  “Laressa” was aging, costly to insure and maintain, in need of a new trailer, and frankly we just weren’t using her enough to justify hanging on.  I was happy with the transaction at the time, but I’ve had a surprisingly powerful case of “seller’s remorse” since we parted ways.  Today I ate lunch at the harbor, sitting on a bench across from the launching ramp that we’d used so many times, watching boaters of varying skill levels launch and retrieve their vessels.  This is something I’ve done for years; it’s a perverse form of amusement, watching for those telltale rookie mistakes and boneheaded moves, feeling ever-so-slightly superior.  Now boatless, my lunches at the harbor seem just a bit masochistic at some level.

As most folks know, in painting as in so many other endeavors, the bulk of the work is in the preparation.  I spent most of today on that task, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.  I began by bringing in the tables, chairs, and tacky nautical tchotchkes that adorn our front patio.  I rolled up the green indoor/outdoor carpets {this is sounding off-the-charts ugly, but trust me, it all sort of works} and that’s when I found them, beneath the ivy that had grown up and over the carpet at the edge of the patio: Billingsgate bricks.  Ghosts of the past.

Billingsgate shoal is an almost mystical place – a sandbar that sits at the edge of Wellfleet Harbor, separating the harbor from Cape Cod Bay.  150 years ago, Billingsgate was an island, upon which had been built a small village of some 30 homes.  Today, it disappears completely at high tide, the buildings and lighthouse having long since been reclaimed by the sea.  One can only get to Billingsgate by boat, as we did so very many times over the years.  It’s a truly unique place, the middle of nowhere, yet so close as to be visible from across the harbor.  On a clear day (at low tide,) you can stand on Billingsgate and see the entire arc of Cape Cod Bay, from the inner harbor to the canal to Plymouth and Provincetown. 

These fragments of bricks, set down years ago as weights to hold down our carpet and now covered with ivy, came home from Billingsgate with our daughters at some point, along with countless shells, smooth rocks, bits of driftwood – an endless variety of beach junk.  A century or two before that, they were almost certainly part of a foundation or chimney on the island.

Had I undertaken this paint job last year, I would have tossed these old, worn brick fragments aside without a second thought; but today I held them in my hands, examined them, reflected on their origins. Then I paused and asked myself “what the hell are you doing?  There’s work to be done…”  And I realized in that moment what had changed: nothing, and everything.  My children are grown.  The fleeting magic that was their youth, and my boat, are gone; and I cannot visit Billingsgate anymore.  Time is a thief, and there is no stronger desire than want for something one cannot have.