find your focus

One more bit I wrote in Cape Cod. Why does this stuff look pretentious to me afterwards. Yesterday's post made me gag. Nothing holds up, or maybe I just get sick of myself.

I've slept deeply each night I've been here, though as usual the dreams mostly fragmented upon waking. After biking so much on Sat, beach lounging (so arduous) and rock-hopping all the way along the jetty- though not as far as the lighthouse- I was worn out and fell asleep early. Sunday morning I walked to the end of the road where the house is (in Eastham) to the bay beach and found the tide was low. When I'd checked it out on Thurs, the tide was high, lapping against the rocks, and the sand mottled with rain. The way the tide changes the terrain is always a surprise, at least to those of us who are usually land-bound. I walked far out across the shallows, the wet sand squishing pleasantly beneath my feet. Tiny crabs scuttled sideways and bits of seaweed lay in clumps. I looked back at the shore as I'd done from the end of the jetty, and imagined the waves rushing in to cover me, sweeping me away out to sea. 

Later, I drove to Provincetown once more, rented a bike again and rode to the beach, but by that time clouds had obscured the sun and a breeze had picked up. 

Noticed I sure seem to have more hours in the day when there's no internet. I'm probably not on as often as others, but I still want to practice more discipline, to block off chunks of offline time and adhere to them. There's no reason why I can't- I don't have the kind of work/life where everyone's expecting me to respond within the hour, though I wonder if I'd be more successful if I did. I just read Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind, a weightily titled small book by various accomplished and effective people. The ideas probably apply to virtually every creative person trying to get something done in this buzzing world, even those without smartphones or offices.

I stopped in Wellfleet on my drive back to the house, as I'd heard there was a strawberry festival there. I don't know how, but I just hear about these things. On Main St, I followed the signs with strawberries on them to a table where ladies sold tickets for strawberry shortcake. I bought my ticket and was handed a heaping bowl of berries, a biscuit and real whipped cream, which I carried to a picnic table. This was the extent of the festival, but it was good enough for me, since I'd skipped Beacon's Strawberry Fest last weekend. Plus, I found another used-book shop down the street, and left with a signed copy of David Byrne's book Bicycle Diaries. I'd briefly considered getting my ear pierced in Provincetown, but I decided books were a better souvenir. 

 Before leaving on Monday, I detoured to Coast Guard Beach, one of the gateway beaches to the Cape Cod National Seashore. Gateway beach like a gateway drug, I mused as I stumbled to the car giddy and blissful, tossing my sandy towel in the backseat, as ready for a 4-hr drive through traffic and heavy rain/ blinding sun as I'd ever be.