It was safe, nestled in our memories as a sanctuary, a cozy place with picket fences, a solid roof, and tons of windows to inspect the world outside, and ensure the comfort of our interiors. It was home, our place, whether it was a long winding driveway to our front door or a bunch of bushes three feet from the curb, we could enter, and leave a maddening world behind. Many of us understood, that sanctuary was not an evil slice of vocabulary, but a soft, gentle sound, permitting a sense of family and freedom. Welcome, the doormat would read, you are a guest, and once you enter, you are safe!
Provincetown has been and still is that niche in my lifetime where the coziness is constant, the comfort compelling, and the sense of security strong enough to hold tight any worries from the void and emptiness of the bully, the self anointed victim, and the insecure despots surviving by scapegoating those around them without reason and with ravish, relentless relevance! Provincetown is, for me metaphorically home, not just the one from which my instructions about life began, but the place with no closets, no foolish hierarchies, no decades of demand, just because as the song goes, the Bible Told Me So, and no pronouncements of someone else’s restrictive rules and regulations, because their God told them so.
We, The People, are living in dangerous times (dangerous becoming a very dull and overused word, sadly so). Rules of order seem to change, lawlessness has become the law, sinister, slimy, snake oil an economic staple, incoherence the langue spoken, and freedom, equality, and democracy all dying qualities of a once proud nation. My home, America, is a scary place. I don’t recognize it, nor many of the persons responsible for keeping the walls, the roof and the foundation of my humble abode, survivable. Perhaps there were never “THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS”! Maybe they were just made up machinations of a childhood mind still full of magic and mystery. But these current days are fraught with FEAR.
Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me. (Paul Simon)
