time away...

Our time away in Provincetown was lovely. Our trip down was a little exciting because the cape in particular had just been hit by a big storm. Power was out on nearly the entire cape, and from town line to town line, we didn't know whether the roads would be plowed, or whether we'd be driving on bumpy icey roads, or in snow ruts. (Turns out that most public employees had use-it-or-lose-it vacation time, so were taking the last days of the year off. Plowing was handled by "amateurs," and no one was prepared for the storm.)

We stayed at a B&B where we've stayed before, so we just pulled into town and checked in. The power wasn't on yet, but our place had a generator. We were so tired that we crashed for a while.

That evening, we decided to go to an old favorite place for dinner, the Martin House, which is in an old house. (It's so old that its front door faces the beach, which at that time served as the main road.) We knocked on the side door because we saw people inside. When someone came to the door, we asked if they were open. They looked a little befuddled, and after some consultation, they decided they were open. We felt pulled inside as if by a giant vacuum.

Once in, we realized that they were barely open. Turns out that the power had just come back on. So they sat us in front of their one gas fireplace while they lit the other three (wood) fireplaces on the first floor. It was kind of chilly for a while. But we eventually sat in one of their small downstairs rooms in front of the fire and had a delicious dinner and excellent service and of course will go back at our next opportunity.

We spent the next couple of days eating great food, having fun conversations, walking, walking, walking, both in town and on the beach (Mark's beach -- I think of it as where Mark lives, but it's really where we put some of his ashes), visiting art galleries, and doing a little shopping.

There's an art gallery in town, Julie Heller's, that's been around for 25 years and represents a lot of artists. It's in an old shack on the beach, and the people we've met there (Katherine, Julie, Julie's father) all know a lot about the artists, and in some cases actually know the artists. They understand the techniques the artists used, and the connections between the artists and the art itself. There are a few paintings on the wall, but most are in stacks on the floor. You basically choose a stack and leaf through it, then move on to the next. And they'll put anything on the wall that you want to look at in more detail. I actually bought a piece there a few years ago, and this visit, Katherine remembered the piece and the artist and was delighted to know where the piece was.

We also went to a dance performance, Nutcracked, by David Parker's Bang Group. It's a take-off on the Nutcracker for (mostly) grownups, featuring modern jazz interpretations of the music as well as serious (as intended in the original) renditions of other parts of the music. And it features bubble wrap, pas de trois, men on pointe, a silly scene with a tiny tree that rises rather than grows, and thumb-sucking (of other people's thumbs) and it was terrific. It makes me want to see a serious Nutcracker and then see Nutcracked again to pick up all the nuances I missed the first time around. Bravo. And congratulations to the new Provincetown theater which presented the Bangsters as a benefit.

As always, it was a little hard to leave. I love the quiet and the light in Ptown, the friendly people, the quirky architecture. We'll be back, I'm sure.