I received this poem from a friend in the middle of my three month Winter
Artist's Residency in an historic "Dune Shack". The poem could not be
more apt in summing up a meditative retreat to Provincetown's Province
Lands, a truly magnificent strip of barrier dunes, scrub pine forest,
wild cranberry bogs, vernal pools, and generally very tenacious living
things. The C-Scape Dune Shack became my refuge in this wild landscape.
It is a 58 year old cottage originally owned and constructed by Eddie
and Mary Nunes, now owned by the Cape Cod National Seashore and managed
by the Provincetown Community Compact. The shack is a unique collaboration
between the Compact and the National Seashore Park; the Compact was
awarded a five year lease to manage C-Scape and has established a number
of residencies for artists and stays for the public and Provincetown
community. I applied under the heading "Winter Residency: 1 to 3 month
stay, proposals sought."
One
might ask, "Why would you want to live at the edge of the earth, at
the very tip of the end of this continent with no electricity or running
water, in a quaintly semi-porous three room 'shack'?" Good question!
I had three reasons: first, a love of nature in all its Seasons and
forms. Second, spiritual longing, the pull to take time and space to
look within. Third, as a young boy running around the marshes of Lieutenant's
Island in Wellfleet I had eaten far too much wild asparagus... The following
excerpts from my Winter's Journal illuminate what it is like to live
surrounded by the elements...
Going
Nowhere
It is the December full moon. For these last four days as I crest the
barrier dune, the sea and sky are awaiting me. Expansive. An immense
crazy orange globe hangs just above the water. I walk at the water's
edge, and a shimmering line of orange light laps at my feet, leading,
and teasing me.
It is about a twenty minute walk on the beach until I cross the dunes
again and descend into a shallow valley where C-Scape is nestled. But
to say a "twenty minute walk" is meaningless. These nights, walking
is timeless. Just as the moon is indiscernibly shrinking and climbing
upwards, I am somehow moving forward. Step after step, the moon is hanging,
luminous, on my left. The dunes are a shadowy rhythmic wall on my right.
The beach stretches endlessly into their meeting point. I laugh and
my heart sings, for with each step it feels like I am going nowhere
and could walk there forever.
Patterns
Returning to the shack this morning (along the beach) I come across
a dead bird washed onto the shore - a Puffin! I think so in any case.
It's a blustery day, mostly cloudy, and thus cold. I drop my pack at
C-Scape and return to the beach to photograph the bird. It seems so
exotic after all the grays, blacks, and whites of the Gulls, Sandpipers,
and Gannets.
After rolling around on the beach, inches away from the matted lifeless
thing - shooting macro shots of its feet and bill (starved for bright
color in this muted landscape I guess!), I head toward the dunes, only
to become fascinated by a hollow of strange sand formations. The Wind
has blown the loose sand away from undulating sheets of sediment, leaving
a world of miniature mesas, canyons, and waves. Again, I'm lying down
in the cold sand, scanning this new and tiny landscape. It strikes me
how clearly nature reveals the essence of its energy through patterns;
the wind sculpting both earth and water into like forms. Wave of sand,
wave of sea.
Hermit
Crab
The first Northeaster is upon me. I run around, nailing blankets over
drafty windows, stoking the wood stove, keeping warm while the elements
rage about me. I now understand the third of the three essentials -
shelter! Perhaps because I am just barely sheltered. It seems obvious
now; Shelter! Yes, shelter, something to put between you and that last
50 mph gust of wind, laden with bullet like drops of rain.
I feel like a hermit crab hiding deep inside a whelk shell - safe, but
jostled. The drafts remain despite the blankets over the windows, and
I become a psychic hermit crab, divining for drafts, wandering around
the shack, hands outstretched, stuffing chunks of white foam into gaps
between the boards. Most dramatic, and strangely comforting, is getting
into bed. The entire shack is swaying and shaking with the onslaught
of the wind. It is difficult to say why I am comforted by what feel
like minor earthquakes. It makes me feel small, relaxes my sense of
self importance, and returns me to the context of the natural world;
warm and snuggled in down, wind and rain humming against the walls.
Simple.
Small
Miracles
The Southwest corner of the Shack has a windswept bowl of sand around
it. A vortex is eroding more and more of the surrounding dune, exposing
the foundation post and the cement block which it rests on. When I arrived,
I put up a snow fence with the help of my father. Unfortunately, the
fence hasn't quite done the trick, and there is a possibility that I
will eventually tip over and be lost in the dunes forever.
I was telling Tom, the manager for the place, that we should stuff the
fence with seaweed or beach straw and that would stop the erosion. We
brainstormed possible fillers more easily transported than these and
came up with Christmas trees, as Christmas has just past, and everyone
is throwing out the poor things. Tom is quite busy, and hasn't materialized
with them, which is just as well.
This
latest Northeaster is blowing like mad today, from the North - Northeast
really, almost straight onto the beach. On days like this you sit inside
with the wood stove blazing, warm and cozy while the Shack rattles and
squeaks. However, the sheer energy of the weather is contagious. So
I've made several forays into the madness. This last one, donning just
about every piece of impermeable warm clothing that I have, I made it
out to the beach.
The
ocean is a froth, the air is filled with salt water, and biting, and
sand is blowing everywhere. The waves are coming right up to the base
of the first low dune which is now a 12 foot cliff. It is most comfortable
to lean backwards into the wind, protecting your face and "relaxing"
into the frenzy. Looking down the dune to the West - NO! It can't be,
but - YES! It is! A Christmas tree has blown out of the sea and is stuck
in the beach grass! I immediately run over to make sure I really haven't
been out here too long, and started hallucinating Christmas trees. But
it is a real honest to goodness, still green, somehow seaborne Christmas
tree. I drag it back to the Shack and toss it into my snow fence. Now,
once again inside and warm, drinking tea and scribbling this all down,
I rest assured that despite my seeming isolation, someone is watching
over me!
Color
It's very misty out, slightly drizzling and foggy. Expansiveness of
view has been traded for intensity of color. I can no longer see across
the valley behind the shack. However, the bush in the cranberry bog
right outside my door , and the scrub pine next to it are glowing. The
bush has tendrils of new growth at the tips of all its branches. These
dark red stalks reach like frozen fire into the mist. Its neighbor,
the pine, is a shining dark yellow green. The bog is restive and black,
a mirror to the luminous gray whitish emptiness all around us. Us being
the bush, the tree, and myself, harbored in the mist.
A sense of wonder and mystery accompanies this day. After my morning
meditation, I took a walk through the fog. The way in which the landscape
emerges and dissolves creates this feeling of mystery. Indistinct shadows
slowly transform into compositions of color. Spaces can only be experienced
in sections, there is no overall view, and thus this circle I am wandering
around in, the limit of my vision in the mist, becomes the whole. The
dune-scape is reborn through moisture. Every part of this environment
is saturated, and radiant, a world unto itself.
Love
of the Land
It is the last week of my stay here at the shack. The fear of leaving
this space and returning to working life has peppered the last few weeks
with days of depression. Amongst these difficult times there have been
a few gems. Today was one of them, and it felt like my good-bye to this
wonderful landscape, at least for the time being. 
The
morning had the taste of spring in it, sunny and warm, without wind,
a hazy stillness on
the dunes. It was with the simultaneous ache of sadness and joy that
I tromped across the valley, inland and to the crest of the second row
of high dunes. I sat down, looking south across a long scrub pine forest
interlaced with a series of vernal pools, and the rolling desert of
sand beyond. I sat for quite a while, breathing the essence of this
place, opening myself.
The
quiet meditation on the crest of the dune set the tone for the rest
of the hike. Further along, I spent a long time carefully examining
a baby pine tree which was growing at the edge of a shallow pool. I
was fascinated by the new growth, its "flower", pearls of sap, the minutia
of this incredibly common tree. Its beauty at that moment was strikingly
clear, and a prayer - a song - of reverence for the dunes arose. Singing
this ode, the chorus being simply "you are amazingly beautiful!", I
improvised lines as I walked, paying homage to nature in all its variation
and delicate beauty. I am incredibly grateful to have had this time
alone in the Province Lands. Somehow, in what could be mistaken for
a desolate environment, the richness, variation, and energy of nature
were revealed to me. All that is necessary for us to renew our connection
with the natural world is to spend a little time looking closely at
its elements, sharing its energy. As I pass the dunes now, mostly in
my van, busy with my "civilized" life as an artist and landscaper, I
smile, knowing the peace and freedom I had out there, and knowing I
will return! - Traven Pelletier
Photos
by Jen Bradley and Traven Pelletier All text and imagery ©2000 The C-Scape
Mapping Project
