The Unexpected Stillness

The aerial view of Fisherman's and MacMillan's piers. Credit: MIke Donovan from Cape Cod Photo, Art & Framing.

It’s the silence that first catches you by surprise. And in this stillness, other sounds rise up like the lapping of waves against the sailboats, the creaking of docks against a rising tide, and the thump of fish boxes dragged along dinghy docks.  Such sounds return with a shock–sounds almost forgotten since early June, muffled by the hubbub of tourists who fill Provincetown to its jam packness in summer.

But now you can hear the putt-putt of a solitary motor as it starts up or the three blasts from the schooner Bay Lady II as she departs MacMillan Pier or even the flags whipping like Tibetan prayer wheels atop the few remaining boats tethered to Fisherman’s Pier.

It’s as if you’ve come to believe that every day will be filled with shrieks, giggles, shouts and chatter, mixed in with barkers announcing nighttime cabarets and street musicians forever entertaining visitors. Then in July, and even more in August, the clamor intensifies, becoming the expected, buzzing background of Provincetown.

So now, weeks and weeks after Labor Day, you’re jolted from the buzzing madness to a stark emptiness that takes some adjustment, even as it comforts and satisfies. In truth, you discover Provincetown and its silence as if for the first time.

Perhaps what shocks is the reality of so much silence, created by the absent voices, the staccato of thousands of tourists that vanishes as the summer people, queued up in caravans, themselves disappear across the Bourne and Sagamore bridges. As visitors depart, they take with them not only their beach-cottage experiences and salt-sprayed memories; they also take away the intense commotion. It’s as if they’ve packed the sounds of beach parties, barbecues, clam bakes, and T-dances deep inside their suitcases and within their knapsacks.

But, now it’s fall. You drive along Fisherman’s Wharf and the once packed wooden pier is empty. You drive to Town Hall and many parking spots await you. You go inside the Post Office and few people stand in line. You walk the beach and spot two people. No one else. The ocean is still. There’s little to disturb the waves. A cormorant flies in and you hear its wings flap.

There’s a palpable silence. It’s a hovering presence, like a sigh. You sense the timbre of sea and sand, the pitch of birds in flight, the slight turn of the wind as a monarch butterfly dips and flutters away.

You have time to look at the Old Reliable Fish House and see, one season later, how much more it’s falling apart. You even count the few remaining pilings left out at sea like abandoned pick-up-sticks.

You hear no voices, no conversations. You forget how still a beach can be, how quiet the bay ultimately is, how silent sand is. And at night, you look up and almost hear the clouds fast passing the full moon.

Still, the stillness and the beauty surprises. A season leaves and quietness returns. You take a deep breath as if you’re sitting in a Zendo and the Zendo is Provincetown.

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