It’s 8:45 a.m. on August 1st. I should be sitting at the dining room table sipping my coffee and eating buttermilk pancakes stuffed with blueberries, peaches, strawberries, raspberries and bananas topped with Vermont Maid syrup. I should be discussing what activity we should start the day off with: kayaking, a trip to Washburn Island, a bike ride to the beach, or the most obvious choice, a game of croquet. I should be enjoying the first day of a week-long vacation at the family-owned beach house in the small town of East Falmouth on Cape Cod. Instead, I’m at my desk, preparing for a meeting to discuss the informational pamphlets on the misuse of antibiotics that I just created.
2016 marks the first time in nearly 20 years that I haven’t spent a week of my summer at my beloved childhood vacation spot. When I was little, I would countdown the days until “camp Cod” on my calendar. The night before we left, my dad would meticulously pack the minivan. The pouch was strapped to the roof and filled with suitcases and five bikes were mounted on the rack built for only three. At 3 a.m., my mom would come get me out of bed although I had never fallen asleep - I was too excited. I always sat in the back row with the dog. I rested a pillow against the window and tried to close my eyes. By 6 am, the sun started to rise as the New York City skyline appeared in the distance. Around 7:30 a.m., we would stop at the “Hole-in-the-Wall Deli” for egg sandwiches on freshly baked Portugese bread. By 11 o’clock, we usually reached the Bourne Bridge which meant that we had less than an hour to go. Once we turned onto Old Meeting House Rd, I knew we were just a few minutes away. As we pulled onto Bacon Farm Rd, you could start to smell the crisp pond air. The paved road quickly transitioned to a narrow dirt path lined with trees until all of the sudden there was a clearing ahead.
The cape house is tiny. It was built in the 1930s by my great-great grandfather. He ordered it from the Sears-Roebuck catalog, and it had been delivered on a flatbed truck to his 7-acre property on Bournes Pond. There are three bedrooms named for the color of the bedspreads: the blue room, the yellow room and the orange room. There’s a single bathroom with a shower measuring two feet by two feet, a dining room just big enough for a family-sized table, a small kitchen and a living room decorated in old family photos and retired fishing rods. The walls are only an inch thick, there are wooden patches on the ceiling where tree branches once fell through during a storm, and there’s a water line about a foot and a half high in the dining room marking the flooding from a hurricane. The sheets are always a little sticky and the floors creak at the lightest footsteps. There’s no high speed internet, and until a few years ago, there was no television - just the radio to hear the weather and the Red Sox baseball games. It’s far from luxurious. Most would consider it uncomfortable. But it’s my childhood vacation spot - my “favorite place in the world.”
Every time I visit, the memories of my childhood summers come flooding back to me. I remember when my dad built the wooden seesaw. I remember playing in the barn and imagining I was Laura Ingalls. I remember learning how to play poker when I was just 8 with the old clay chips on the wobbly card table with my dad and grandmother. I remember using hand-crank egg beaters to make homemade whipped cream for strawberry shortcakes. I remember losing many scrabble games on rainy days to my grandmother (I know more words containing the letters Z and Q than any average human should). I remember learning how to drive the motor boat on my own. I remember catching crabs and then devouring a bowl of crab dip. I remember the feeling of paws scratching against my legs in water. I remember trips to Smitty’s Ice Cream (still the best ice cream I have ever had). I remember tubing and knee-boarding for hours. I remember the feeling of pulling a “mummy” in croquet (definition: when an opponent’s ball is blocking the wicket that you need to get through, but you are ineligible to hit said opponent's ball; therefore, you angle the mallet at approximately 55 degrees and whack your ball in an effort to jump over the opponent’s ball and pass through the wicket). I remember the somber feeling of the last night and thinking, “It’s okay, at least I’ll be back next year.”
I always knew in the back of my mind that there would probably be a year that I wouldn’t get to visit my New England beach escape. I knew that day would probably come sooner than I would like. But, I never expected to miss it this much.
Growing up, I was a little jealous of my friends who got to visit Disney World or go to the Caribbean over spring break while I sat at home. I was jealous that they got to fly on a plane and go somewhere “cool.” I’ve always craved new adventures. As I’m entering my twenties, I think about studying abroad, post-graduation trips to Europe and spring break getaways. I imagine all of the places I want to put on my bucket list: New Zealand, Italy, Costa Rica, South Africa, Hawaii, Alaska. For so long, all I wanted was to travel the world. Yet, right now, as I finish up my summer internship and prepare to go back to school, the only thing I want to do is wake up to sound of geese in my twin bed, with orange covers. I want peep out the window and see the sunshine hit the water. I want to smell bacon cooking and coffee brewing. I want to walk down to dock and dip my feet in the water. I want to be in my “happy place” - the little grey house on Upalong Rd.
