At the Cape, I feel closer to nature.  There is something, after all, about the long, narrow spit of land between the bodies of water, everything closer at hand, not at some far, distant vista.

Where we stay, our house in Falmouth, is backed by woods, a couple hundred feet from a cranberry bog, and a short walk to Flax Pond.  With the open areas of bogs, marshes and lots and lots of ponds, nature is “at the door”.  Just a few feet away are the elusive lady slippers of late May, very particular about their soil requirements.  On the way to the pond is a herring run; that particular spot is where the fireflies come out at night.  Also in the early evening are the bats, flitting from woods to woods, taking the shortcut over the streets.  Around the bog is where I had my close encounter with the coyotes, three of them, watching me with great curiosity.  I know the nest of the ospreys and there’s no greater excitement than when they plunge down over the pond, mostly always successful in plucking out some clueless fish. 

Because it’s a rural place, still, in many ways, we see the cranberries ripening in the bog, we’ve picked strawberries, warm in the soil, at Tony Andrews Farm, one of the last legacies of a great strawberry domain.  For some time, I would take the kids blueberry picking, the highbush berries taller than we were, the berries almost in clusters like grapes. Then, the farmer could no longer keep up; no nets to keep away piercing bird beaks, no fences to keep out the roaming coyotes.

At the seashore, we are among the sea creatures – horseshoe crabs with their ancient, unchanged design, sometimes one piggy-backing on the other.  Our great sport, the crabs.  At Woodneck Beach, it is possible to wander back, back, back into the marsh, scooping the tiny, wiggling hermit crabs, or stalking the fiercer big crabs, knee deep in water, the sun on our shoulders, lost, lost to any other worries. This, for the moment, is the entire world – kids and nets and crabs – the cry goes up when another crab is caught; the treasures are shared around in buckets for all to see, and then the clicking, clambering creatures are finally let go at the end of the day. 

There are sandsharks, little guys, if you look on the sandbar at Old Silver Beach.  One day, rounding the jetty from the public beach to the resident beach, I found myself surrounded by two-foot striped bass.  Yeah, freaked me out! But none was interested in me. The tide was turning, and there were herring, or any number of other kinds of food shooting out of the river mouth into their mouths.  Oh, my!

At night, because the houses are more scattered, and number of ponds and marshes greater, there are great expanses of black sky, sprinkled with planets and stars.  On the cooler, clearer nights of late summer, the Milky Way is overhead in the backyard, which I have never, ever seen in my days at home in Bedford.  The storms, may I say, are also more intense in that part of the Cape, or so it seems. Maybe because of the heat of summer?  Or maybe the churning air systems?  Once, at a craft fair in the town center, a morning thunderstorm came on so quickly and powerfully, we had no choice but to huddle with the vendors under their tents, flaps dropped, and shudder and gasp as the thunder and lightening enveloped us —for about ten minutes. And then was gone.

It might be time at the Capte, too, that makes me appreciate more my relationship with nature — the time to look around, look carefully, and not be so caught up in constant, internal planning that the magic around me goes unnnoticed. Sitting on the deck in early evening, I’ve seen hummingbirds at the pine trees. Who knew?

At the Cape, I am more sister to my fellow creatures. I spend time with them in the water and in the woods. I go barefoot and wear as little clothing as is passably modest, and I revel in the outside shower, sun and water on my naked skin.  At the Cape, I am at home in the natural world, and it is a beautiful place to be.