P'town

She sits on the sill of the open window, a long, knotty walking stick clutched in her hand. A lonely woman who has seen many things... And it is a raucous crowd tonight, as the piano man revives a lost Broadway, all those songs sitting mute in our minds. We lift our faces to the summer night, to the lights of the street outside, our mouths wide open, words we didn’t know we knew, jack-knifing off our tongues. Just beyond the crowd, a man in a plaid shirt and dark glasses sings louder than the rest of us, lifting his glass at each thundering chord, remembering a time… I can feel the swelling of his joy, like a water balloon tossed hand to hand around this buoyant room, this ocean town. The woman with the walking stick moves her lips to those familiar songs, her words like quiet rain evaporating on the sand. She sits stiffly by the open window, close enough to touch one aching finger to those moving keys. Holding on to her stick, she lifts the other hand to rub the back of her neck, to press against a troubled shoulder. And I know she knows pain... Her stick touches the leg of his polished stool, as his lively fingers move. The stick that helps her navigate so many things... The piano man smiles at her, and this is where she and her walking stick belong.

And he does not wait to finish one song before yanking the next one onto those rollicking keys. We recognize each song from those first few vigorous chords—and here we are, stranger and friend alike, in a small room in a lusty ocean town. Singing. In this land of make believe. Of shingled cottages huddled close together to ward off the rest of the world. This land of gardens and sand and wave.

Yesterday a young man hurled himself from an imposing bridge, and I wonder if he did not know about this place. This place of caresses and wind, of midnight fishing boats easing back to moor. This place that smells of the sea, this place that smells of all kinds of love…

This place that is twenty years mine. Just beyond the Ptown sign, where the tide moves out to reveal a footprint on a muddy floor, a dull white shell that got left behind. I walk out alone, until the sand grass along the shore no longer waves in the breeze, is no longer distinguishable. Until those who wait on the beach have lost sight of me…

And to those of you who accuse me of a certain sentimentality, I say that you don't know this place where I will spend my eternity. In the shadow of the lighthouse, with the scent of love on the waves…

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