Another Trip to Gloucester

As the holiday weekend approaches, my husband and I are looking forward to our journey to the summer home in Gloucester. We recently renovated the house, and between the new cabinets of dark midnight blue and slate grey, the new faux wood floors, open floor space, new yellow and egg shell paint; the house is almost brand new again. Gone is the drabness of the seventies chic. The old dark wooden cabinets, the drabness of the foam green and, baby blue paint all but a memory preserved in old photographs of the past. Luckily the orange shag rug had disappeared before I got there but there is evidence of that in the old photographs as well.

Bill and I enjoy walking "Good Harbor Beach", with the sentinel twin lights on Thatcher Island, an salt island coming out of the sea like a big giant dog. Gloucester is home to three giant windmills, the triplets as one of Bill's students has dubbed them. As we drive to the house they loom on the horizon sometimes eerily coming out of the mist like giant arms from a monster from outer space. At first my husband disliked them; hovering over the beach, coming in and out of the mist, and ruining his precious view. Now, however, he looks to see if the giant arms are moving, which of the behemoths are moving, and at what rate they are moving.

One summer we actually got to go inside one. At the bottom of the windmill, it is large enough to hold eight or more people. Inside the behemoth there is a latter to the top, for workers to make repairs. It must be like sitting on top of the world. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be up at the top of one of those; as the wind shear alone must be deafening at that height.

It's always interesting to see where the sea meets land at the edge of the earth. How much of the sandbar shows, is the granite rock showing, how much of the granite is showing. We have seen the devastation in the past few years. The storms and the sea have met in the most horrific way; slashing out the bridge and banging up the "Chinese" house with it's Pagoda roofs. The house and the bridge have been rebuilt, however, the flavor of the past is missing. It doesn't have the same presents as it did once. Gone are the Pagoda roofs from the "Chinese" house, in with new material that looks more space age than retro age. Leaving the soul to morn it's passing.

Once when we came up the sea had washed the sand from the shore leaving rocks and quite a gully in it's wake. But just as the sea takes the sand from the shore, it also redeposits it over time. And as time passes; slowly but surely the sea and the shore replenish what the storms take away. This year the sand was plentiful, having been restored this past winter from storms, winds, and rains.

Gloucester is a fishing town, and in the pandemic, they have essentially shut down all of our favorite places to go, like "Halibut Point", "the restaurant". Many restaurants which rely on the summer for their livelihoods will probably shutter. Through the quagmire of rough and tumble times new business will popup; they always do. Birth and regrowth are a part of Gloucester, and for that matter a part of New England; for in the dreariness of a cold New England Winter the streets get quiet and still, as snow falls in drifts. Gone are the tourists, summer residents, beach goers, artists, musicians, summer brides, and party goers. Gloucester's summer fades into the sunset only to rise again the next year. So to will this pass.

As this summer fast approaches, Gloucester is on a precipice, one that could lead to complete disaster; or one that could lead to the rebirth of a quaint old New England Village. Just like the pandemic only time will tell what will happen. For now we are in a holding pattern. Just like everywhere else.