This is My Home

I haven’t been back to Cape Cod in two years. It has been almost one year since my mother passed and about seven since my maternal grandparents passed. It has been over twenty years since my paternal grandfather passed and I never met my paternal grandmother, who I was named after. And the small Cape cottage we are staying in right now was hers.

I was brought up on Cape Cod, during summers and occasional winters. Both sets of grandparents adored it here – one set retired here for over 25 years. Both sets are buried in the plot right up the road from here. I spent part of 4th grade here. I got my driving licence here and when we traveled abroad, we came “home” to Cape Cod.

I used to row my grandparents boat over to this library – the library which is currently closed and where I am stealing wi-fi to post this. I used to check out Nancy Drew books. I used to pet the library cat and maybe skip up the road for some M&Ms at the town Superette.

This is my home.

I have been here less than 24 hours, but memories previously adrift now swell, break and crash at my feet. Ghosts of those here before surround my soul and startle my heart. Familiarity washes over me and moves back, leaving me left to shake out what is current and what is past.

This is my home.

(And my home also has very little internet access. So bear with me. I have so much to say but just not all that much wi-fi to say it. )

(Oh and I should specify that this is not a pic of my family’s cape cottage. It is a pic of the Coast Guard Station on the beach just a couple miles from the cottage. But it is such a familiar image from my childhood, it may as well be “home”…)