Going Away.
by Peter DiBart

07.23.02 [11:48pm]

I'm going away. Heading north. Then east. Outside of New York and its static sphere of madness. North to Massachusetts. Than east, along its beautiful shore to... [insert dramatic pause here] 'Cape Cod'!

We are going to play our parts. Experience our existence as an 'ideal non-urban, American life form.' It's the absolute realness of The Cape that makes it so attractive. Idealized towns made that way not by hands of developers, planners or Disney fabricators but by generations and generations of like minded people. People who have chosen to stand still and let time pass.

Standing still and resisting the current of time is a conscience matter of not doing things rather than doing things. That is the only way the glossy patina of history can be created. It can't be brought in Home Depot or created in a theme park. Too few people understand this. Or rather appreciate it. A great oak can never be appreciated in its final form by the one who plants it. We appreciate the idea of the oak but prefer not to wait for it to grow. Rather we cut it down, put a full size plastic one in its place and assume it's just as good. That is what is so special about the cape. It's like a time capsule where everything is real. The people work hard 'not doing things' to keep it that way. Standing proud against time as it washes on by.

So we enter stage-right and become part of the community. We greet 'Bob' the man who pours our morning coffee behind the counter of 'The Salt Tide' on Piper Street, "In business since 1927." As 'Bob' folds our morning paper in a tucked three like he did so many years ago as the town's eastside news boy. We drink our coffee out of mismatched ceramic mugs and get the latest news from 'Bob' and know that his sister in Harwich is doing well. We are the community and we are one. Part of the ongoing play, accepted as members of the cast. Away and back in time.

Until next week when another couple replaces us, just as we have replaced the ones before us, in the seamless dance that 'Bob' understands as The Cape's particular brand of tourism.