Staying Put

Old Knives

In these dog days of August when the milk turns blue and the newspaper is limp and the night rings with crickets and the occasional ribbet/ribbet of a tree frog, I have no desire to go anywhere. It could be that humidity and inertia complement each other; it could be the toss and turn nights and the soporific afternoons; it could just be that the helter-skelter summer is winding down, and I am ready for ease.

On Cape Cod, August is the sun-bleached month, faded and familiar after the intensity of July’s parades, baseball games, bustling restaurants, thronged beaches. It’s still busy, but September looms, casting its blue shadows over the dry leaves and the straw grass. The people who live here only in summer are thinking about Florida, and those of us who live here year-round are contemplating the prospect of quiet mornings and shorter lines at the grocery store.

There are those who go and there are those who stay, and we live differently. I don’t think about closing up a house, pulling down shades, stripping beds, cleaning out the refrigerator, turning off the gas and the water, saying good-bye, setting sail over the bridge for another abode, another set of friends, another landscape. I divide the year into four seasons, not two.

I envy them sometimes, those who go, escaping ice dams and snowbanks, the formidable cold that snaps the trees, the blizzards that blow out the lights and disarm the furnace. Those who leave don’t bundle up to go to the library or quietly live the long strings of gray days. But they miss wood fires and stews, warm socks, the comfort of an old wool sweater, and seeing the bones of things. They miss the lesson that winter relentlessly demonstrates: we are all in this soup together.

Those who go dispute me, finding happiness in the endless sun and the green golf courses and the ease of walking on beach sand and clear sidwalks. For them, there are flowers in February and tropical breezes in December. And in my little village, their ranks are swelling, as they shutter their houses, wave good-bye to the librarians and the Post Office ladies and the Stop and Shop check-out girls and all the rest of Main Street.

One by one, the houses go dark and the streets turn to sleep. For now, I have decided to stay put and keep a candle shining in the upstairs window so that when the snow falls, you know someone is home.