Yarmouth, Massachusetts

I get up every morning and choose a beach. There are hundreds to choose from within an hour's drive. Rosie, my two year old Lab, jumps into the cab of my 16 year old pickup. Off we go to a pond or a lake or the ocean or the bay or the sound. Sometimes we go to our special spots next to a river or a stream.
Rosie is a water animal and I'm a water human. Unless it's frigid, we swim, chase Frisbees and sticks, and lounge by water's edge.

My town, Yarmouth, MA, is in the middle of Cape Cod. It has lots of water. It has a lake tucked away off a dirt path that few folks know about. It has wide sandy beaches that go on for miles. It has tiny inlets and coves and marshes. It has cranberry bogs that are sometimes pink, sometimes red.
This morning is cloudy, chilly, raw. It's windy because it's March. Rosie and I went to Lewis Bay. No one was around except construction workers who were erecting a monster house overlooking the bay. We greeted the workers and strode down the beach. It was high tide. Rosie chased seagulls and I picked up shells to add to my collection. The wind and the water created their songs and I created my songs and sang as I walked.

I love it here in March. I love it every month because every month is different. Yarmouth is tourist ridden in July and August. That's fine because tourists give locals work and help with taxes. Tourists come and leave, and that's good. September in Yarmouth is at peace with its quiet. The ice cream parlors and clam shacks are still open. The flowers are still in bloom. October is pumpkin season, and pumpkins and corn stocks are on most people's front stoops. They remain until the wreaths go on doors in December. Wreaths remain on doors until the flowers bloom again. There are signs of spring in late February. The willows yellow. Snowdrops appear above frozen ground. Forsythia branches swell.
Yarmouth is proud of its waters, its flowers, its libraries and its people. It's trying hard to grow responsibly. It's buying conservation land and limiting its strip malls. Its people are debating a wind farm in Nantucket Sound. It's saving whales and turtles an piping plovers.

Yarmouth is an hour's drive to Boston with its history and culture. Yarmouth is less than an hour's drive to Provincetown, one of the kinkiest towns on the planet. It's a twenty minute drive to the National Seashore with a wealth of wildlife and unspoiled beaches.

This afternoon Rosie and I will go to Grey's Beach, a marvel of preserved environment. We'll walk the boardwalk and watch the mussels play among the barnacles. We'll chase a tennis ball in woody paths. If no one is looking I might ride down an old slide and swing on an old swing. I'll put my hands in salt water and rub my face. I may see an osprey that lives in a nest that's been at the top of an unused telephone pole for years.

It's a kick to be retired living in Yarmouth.

barbaraleedom

Submitted: Thursday 25th March 2004, 12:42 PM

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