Summer On Mars...er, The Ocean

Spending my summer away from the rest of my family in an alien territory which could be possibly dangerous seems like a rather drastic thing to do, and completely foolhardy. Well, damn the man and throw logic to the wind, I'm doing it anyway.

For the summer, I will be working an internship on the Cape, and for the summer I will be in my own apartment, away from my mom and dad and away from everything that is remotely familiar. Which is not to say that I've never been to the Cape, and I'm really quite familiar with the place.

The problem is that when you've been here as a tourist or a guest, you eat at nice restaurants, see pretty lighthouses, and find the task of avoiding shellfish as easy to do as dance naked in front of a pack of starving lions while doused in meat sauce.

Paints an image, doesn't it?

I can tell you how to get to the Chatham Lights. Sort of. I can name some delicious breakfast places by the Sagamore and Bourne Bridges. I can recommend the best place to go if you want to lie on the beach and catch a tan (who coined this phrase? Are you literally in camoflauge in the grass, watching the elusive tan as it eats at the watering hole nearby, unaware that you are about to jump out and nab it?). I can even name a joke shop or two.

But . . . supermarket? Home supply store? Post office? Please, ask someone else.

The Cape is an amazing place, I'll give you that. However, I wish that I had done one thing before I had set out for the Cape, which was carefully plot on a map exactly where everything is, and furthermore install a GPS chip in my brain so the police can track me when I accidentally wander into the sea.

Take some time, I dare you. You'll do this to. You can move to a new home somewhere, you can say it is perfect, but then step out that door and I DARE you to walk straight to the laundromat without asking for directions or consulting the map.

I'll wait.

Couldn't do it, could you? Ha. Well, we're in the same boat, all of us who move to a new place, even for a short time. The world may be pretty, but in between, you still have an alien world to live in and navigate.

The things that are necessary, you never consider that important until you're wandering the streets with a compass, trying to find them.