Provincetown: Week 2

It's the beginning of my second week in Provincetown. For the next few weeks, along with JB, I will leave my job early each Wednesday afternoon, pick up Stella , pack an overnight bag, and drive three and half hours until we reach the very tip of Cape Cod. That is Provincetown. We'll stay until Sunday, when we'll head back for another three days of work. And then, we'll head out, until we land here again, at the land's end.

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We'll have company most of the summer. This week our friend Liz is here, all of us unwinding and relaxing and laughing pretty much non-stop. We went to bed last night knowing each of us had not one thing demanding attention, requiring energy, or weighing us down. So our steps were light when we converged on the red couch this morning.

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And from there we've taken ourselves out to breakfast, shopped for sneakers, strolled through a hidden zen garden, looked at books, read the newspaper, blogged and surfed the net, fell asleep at the Herring Cove beach, shopped for fruit and ice cream, and now, we are all three back, relaxing, catching up, preparing for an unplanned night that may involve doing nothing or may lean toward joining the hustle-bustle of Commercial Street.

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I will write for two hours before I end my day. That's my promise to myself and here it is an easy promise to keep. I have also promised myself that I will end this summer having done everything I can to be happy and healthy. Happy means I cooperate with letting go of the past and the way I hoped and wanted things to be, and healthy means I keep helping my body look and feel better.

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I'm going to cry some writing this second novel. Now that I've taken a few writing courses, I understand that's to be expected. But I feel very excited and hopeful about it all. I will be summoning tenderness and balance and memory and imagination to the colors and words that await me this summer, and that means my passion's back. I was afraid I'd lost it, that I wouldn't get it back. But today, still on this red couch, with JB on the patio reading the Boston Globe, Stella resting after a walk around the block, and Liz teaching herself how to upload her photos, I think that passion within me is ready for another chance. I'm so damn glad.