The Greens of Summer
Last month I wrote about the somewhat late and erratic start of Summer here in Provincetown. A month later, it is in full swing.
In fact, we are at that point in the year when I have a hard time imagining Provincetown being anything other than warm and humid, packed with tourists and Summer residents, and bursting with colorful flowers and the greenest of marsh grasses.
The other day we were leaving Boy Beach, schlepping our backpacks and ourselves through the wide marsh plane and tidal flats that separate the beach from town. Michael, one of my partners, paused and had us look back at Wood End Lighthouse, commenting how surreal the blue of the sky and the green of the grasses looked. A few days earlier I took a photo of that exact view, and I’m including it here. It’s hard to believe it’s real unless you’ve seen it in person.
I’ve also been out hunting for all the colors in people’s flower gardens, which are abundant and prolific right now. I’ve been lucky to get some of those shots on both cloudy and sunny days, which creates different moods and visions. As always, I’m including some of my recent favorites here.
This feeling of a never-ending Summer will last for another month or so, until we get that first cool-ish day in late August or early September. The chill will be brief and likely early in the day–if you sleep past 7am you might miss it. But it will happen, and it will remind me that this paradise will not last forever (and I mean that in a few ways).
Indeed, before too long, it will be Winter and Provincetown will be empty and often cold and windy. Although I find this place beautiful any day of the year (and encourage people to visit in the Winter, if for no other reason than seeing the kind of light and clouds that only happen then), there will be a day in late February when I can’t imagine that Provincetown will ever again be green and bursting with colors (and humans). It will be hard to believe it will be anything besides brown and grey.
But for now, I’m all about the colors and people, and squeezing every moment of joy out of the coming weeks and months. As Paul Simon says in the song “Kodachrome”:
“You give us those nice bright colors.
You give us the greens of summers.
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera,
I love to take a photograph…”
