Provincetown / 7

Things I must do before going to Provicetown for the summer:

1. Clean my house.
2. Sleep next to my husband.
3. Pet my cats.
4. Give Milk Bone treats to our dogs.
5. Listen to the train in the dark.

Provincetown / 6

Sometimes I begin to wonder how much I will like Provincetown, or if I will like it. Will it be okay, being away from my family for so long? Will it be noisy there? Will there be drama? Fire? Death? Storms? Will the ideas come? Will I get ink on paper? Will what I write be any good?

Kenneth Patchen's poem, "Where" reminds me that no matter where you go, there you are:

Where?
by Kenneth Patchen

There's a place the man always say
Come in here, child
No cause you should weep
Wolf never catch the rabbit
Golden hair never turn white with grief
Come in here, child
No cause you should moan
Brother never hurt his brother
Nobody here ever wander without a home
There must be some such place somewhere
But I never heard of it

Provincetown / 5

I meditated on another Theodore Roethke poem before I went to bed last night. The poem is "Memory."

Then during the night I dreamed that I was in Provincetown asking many strangers what was wrong with my "new" book, asking them to help me right it.

Memory
by Theodore Roethke

In the slow world of dream,
We breathe in unison.
The outside dies within,
And she knows all I am.

She turns, as if to go,
Half-bird, half-animal.
The wind dies on the hill.
Love's all. Love's all I know.

A doe drinks by a stream,
A doe and its fawn.
When I follow after them,
The grass changes to stone.

Provincetown / 4

It has been a long time since I've been to the beach. I spend time on Lake Erie, but the area around a Lake is not a beach, even if people call it that. I grew up in Eastern NC, very close to the Beach, within 20 miles or so. My early childhood memories of the beach are not that happy. My father would sit in the pavilion and drink too much beer, get surly, and in the evening drive much too recklessly home.

Adulthood was better. I have good memories of going to the beach with Allen and our children. Allen used to help the boys build fabulous sand castles. There would be moments, usually as the sun was going down, that I'd stare at the waves and feel peaceful. I never thought I'd get a chance to feel that again. I never visit NC anymore, not since both parents died.

The last time I saw the beach was sometime in the early 1990s. We were visiting my parents and it came a terrific snow storm. Snow is so rare there that mother accused us of bringing the snow with us from Ohio. The next day most of it melted and Allen and I, against my mother's wishes (she never wanted us to leave her house when we were visiting; it made her so angry at us) drove to the beach because we wanted to see snow on the beach.

I'm trying to grasp how it will be at Provincetown, living within walking distance of the ocean. I must take my Walt Whitman with me and my Roethke and study how they wrote about the sea. I've forgotten the feeling of being at one while watching the force of the waves. I was on the Pacific coast last September because I taught workshops at Esalen. But the Atlantic and the Pacific are thoroughly different places. There is a majestic quality to the Northern California beaches. But I've missed the Atlantic. Until now I hadn't realized how much I've missed it. It's been much too long.

Provincetown / 3

Like Theodore Roethke, "I dream of journeys repeatedly." Most of the time, these journeys end in disaster or are impeded by obstacles impossible to overcome. I cross bridges: they are full of holes and fall apart. They have huge gaps I cannot jump. I climb steps: they end. They break apart and sway perilously. Doors will not open.

I have dreamed about Provincetown, too. I see a road that circles around. Inside the circle is a monument. Trees. I am lost.

As far as the real Provincetown: I am hoping to find myself there.

from The Far Field
by Theodore Roethke

I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel,
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate show and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,
Where the car stalls,
Churning in a snowdrift
Until the headlights darken. ...

The lost self changes,
Turning toward the sea,
A sea-shape turning around, --
As old man with his feet before the fire,
In robes of green, in garments of adieu. ...

All finite things reveal infinitude:
The mountain with its singular bright shade
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
Odor of basswood on the mountain-slope,
A scent beloved of bees;
Silence of water above a sunken tree:
The pure serene of memory in one man, --
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding around the waters of the world.