Sea had stayed at bay during the night. I’d kept the windows closed as it had cooled down considerably. Upon waking and walking to Cafe Madeleine, however, I noticed Sea was still around, a bit more sulky, perhaps, and she would follow me to Cape Cod, sifting through the sky and pouring down once I reached my destination. JoAnn and I sat near the bay window of her little mermaid home on Shore Road as the rain poured down, a worrisome state of affairs for Tressie’s graduation later that afternoon. The radar showed it moving off shore in the coming hours, though, and I remained hopeful it would clear. As JoAnn and I caught up, the sky lightened. Sea had thrown her fit and let Eel Pond take over for a bit.
I took a short walk to the Lobster Trap for a seafood fix, where I had the fortune to run into JoAnn’s sister Kate and her daughter Madison. They were good enough to join me for lunch, and celebrating Kate’s birthday as well, which is just how the universe sometimes works. The guests were gathering for the party. Excitement was in the air like the Sea.
On the walk home, I rounded the house and went a few more blocks out of the way to extend the beauty of the Cape. Privet and beach roses were in full bloom, sweetly scenting the misty air. Sea ran in channels all about the area, and I breathed her in alongside the oceanic cologne that wafted off the lichens and moss and wet-loving organisms.
Sky was gray, but her sister Blue had found habitation among the iconic Cape Cod hydrangeas. They don’t get any bluer than here. Subtler shades were found in the wet wreckage of the roadside vegetation, but there were accents of bright color if you got closer and slowed down to see.
Back in JoAnn’s backyard, her work on the gardens over the last couple of years was coming into beautiful fruition. Proper cultivation brought about bigger blooms, brighter colors and a pleasant richness that usually begins in a garden’s third or fourth year. The lessons of a garden were working their own magic – patience, persistence, perpetual failure followed by moments of redemption and gorgeous success. She’s a relatively new gardener, but she’s doing well and finding her way. It came about at just the right time, in just the manner the world intended it to be. A bit of grace, perhaps, in a mad world.
Hope was to be found in the future at hand as well, and celebrating Tressie’s graduation from college was a happy way of bringing everyone together, which is what JoAnn does best. I’ve had the pleasure of being her friend for almost twenty years, and in that time I’ve had the occasional favor of getting to peep in on parties and gatherings where her family members would enter and exit at various stages in our lives.
This was one of those times when everyone seemed to be at a good place. That rarely happens in such fortuitous fashion, not when there are so many of us treading so many different paths, but for one afternoon in June, when the rain held off and the breeze wasn’t too cool, a group of hopeful college grads christened us all with the bit of hope that we needed so badly.
Early the next morning, I departed for my niece’s dance recital, continuing on the circle of life. The day began uncool, gray fashion, and I was leaving Sea behind for the moment. We will be back to see her before the summer is over.
