Cape Cod in August

This morning I woke with a start. I felt every muscle and joint in my body tense as I bent my elbows to lift myself into a near-sitting position. I looked out the window to see what I had expected. Daylight. It must have been near eleven o’clock. I had overslept, and would therefore be doomed to a day-long headache. I absently reached for my cell phone on the table beside my bed to check the exact time, and was surprised. Eight O’clock. Oh, right. I am reintroduced to the fact that if I go to bed any earlier than eleven o’clock at night, it is impossible for my body to sleep past eight AM. Although useful, at times it’s really just a dreadful thing to live with. On weekends, vacations, holidays, or after a long, busy, difficult day, I am incapable of sleeping late.
The air on Cape Cod is unlike any other air. It has a certain beachiness to it that cannot be matched anywhere away from the beach, but it’s different from the air at any other ocean location. It’s salty and sweet, and moist. Not moist like the air anywhere else on a humid day. The Cape’s air doesn’t even have to have any humidity in it, but it will still be damp and sticky. And so salty. Everything is gray; the houses, the sky, even the water from a distance. But it’s not a depressing kind of grayness, like it would be anywhere else. It’s beautiful.
Even on the most boring, miserable day on Cape Cod, there is no place in the world that I would rather be. Today will probably be a day like that. It’s cool outside, and the skies are gray like they’re preparing to drench me. My brothers bore me, my Daddy is out on an adventure, and my Momma is still getting over a thrown-out back. It might be hours before I get a turn to use the tiny shower in the tinier bathroom. What could be better than this? I can see the waves splashing on the shore, the white-caps crashing on each other. The water is pretty calm, for the ocean. The window is open and a cool, salty, sticky breeze is blowing gently across my body.