Marshall and I got away for a few days to Provincetown on Cape Cod this weekend. So good to get away from the desk, work travel, deadlines, and schedules. I’ve been going to P-town since I was first there with friends from high school about 1971. Hard to remember myself as not out yet, my eyes popping at the sights of muscle men and drag queens. My loneliness and horniness at 19 years old were large muffled forces awaiting invitation.
I guess in some ways, P-town, and what it offered me later in ways of coming out, became like some people’s positive connection with a college town. A new me was born there and the experience of freedom and association of all things possible with a place made for a love of place.
I began going there on my own when I got my first car, a new 1972 VW bus. I introduced Bill Kreidler to P-town in 1982 just before I left for massage school in Colorado. Marshall and I went there on our honeymoon in August of 1989. I went there regularly in June between teaching school and teaching summer camp and then again in August on my way back to school. I slept in the bus, at the houses of friends, on the beach, and spent one morning in jail as sleeping in ones car in a public parking lot became illegal. My one time in jail was for illegal sleeping.
All these years later, each part of town hold memories of dear friends, old boyfriends (many too many of those), and finding my place on the gay landscape of the late 1900’s. How many people do we get to be in the search of ourselves?
This trip I saw a seal at Herring Cove beach, quite rare. And a drag queen in a blue wig hawking her things on the sidewalk yelling, “DRAG YARD SALE” to passing cars, not so rare. I saw Jill Nanfeld. I saw a man I taught with 23 years ago. I saw a dear friend I met doing AIDS work in DC 15 years ago. Marshall and I went to the beach in the mornings and for sunsets. We also took a long slow drive out of the area by stopping at several beaches on the ocean side to see crashing waves and whales feeding.
A few days away at a favorite spot, even with the hubbub of high season (I prefer May or Sept), gave us some time to step without pace, sleep late, and indulge in a late breakfast followed by an early lunch, natch.
And now, back home, the nights are cooling. And gearing up for fall travel work slowly begins. First, I officiate at a Korean wedding for which Marshall will make the wedding cake.