GRAY STICKS: Winter on Cape Cod Can Be Endured

Growing up in the Lower Hudson Valley, New York, the four seasons were a right of passage.
If you could bear the cold, snowy winters, you were a survivor of sorts. Keeping a happy tune inside your warm heart when the polar-like wind would whip through the valley or temperatures would dip below zero, meant you had the mental and physical stamina to adapt.

Spring brought renewal, energizing beauty, but summer--I lived in houses without air conditioning--brought new challenges. The high humidity and temperatures, especially during late July and August would have me and my family running for a nearby pool or driving up to Cape Cod for relief.

And then fall lifted the oppressive heat and cooled my perspiration, sluggishness. By then, I was more than ready to return to school.

Years later, I lived in Singapore, located 1 degree above the equator with an average of 90% humidity. After two years, I had adapted and returned to the States feeling less critical. The Hudson Valley heat became bearable.

Not long after my return, my father and I met a couple who had bought a beautiful home overlooking the Hudson River on Storm King Mountain. They had relocated from South Carolina. At a party, the husband looked content and satisfied; his wife did not. Though summer was at hand, she volunteered to me and my father that she loathed the winters on the mountain: "Like living among grey sticks." They had only been in the Hudson Valley for a year, yet I wasn't surprised when I read they put their house on the market two years later.

Then there's the case for "snow birds," fortunate enough to have the money to flock to Florida once a chill sets in on Cape Cod, returning during the late spring, hoping for immediate warmth, to make the transition easier. Sometimes these transients encounter fickle weather, a mercurial phenomenon of the Cape. And native Cape Codders, whom you would expect to be inured to the weather, run away when possible, to warmer climes. Summer may not "officially" begin until temperatures warm up to 75 degrees and the cool rain tapers, as late as July. Many will say that winter, and often spring, on the Cape is challenging.

As for me, I sympathize but don't understand. I may not have been raised here; however, I have endured worse extremes. I wish natives and "wash ashores" alike would see and feel what they are missing during the off-season.

Pine trees don't lose their color. Then, there is the quiet: fewer crowds, cars, sirens and so on. Nature shows its muted tapestry: the endless reshaping of cloud banks off Nauset beach, their silver, grey-blue colors and varied formations that sweep in and out with weather fronts. Or the ocean, sometimes still as a lake with a white crystal surface shining under the sun. In contrast, massive waves after a large storm, reminding us that we are mere humans compared to the regenerating power of the sea.

 Many restaurants, nowadays, remain open and offer bargain menus. Fish markets offer fresh fish not seen during the tourist season. Shopkeepers aren't overly stressed except for the holidays, and are more gracious. Candlelit concerts with a touch of incense warm the heart around Christmas. Services for all faiths and cultural performances remind us how diverse the Cape has become. December and January are filled with events to brighten the mood or enlighten the mind.

Then, there is the weather. I confess I have fallen into hermit behavior in the past. For some time, getting home from work and staying by the fire, watching TV and eating dinner were a ritual. Also, I'll admit I'll forgo a trip to Hyannis on a particularly blustery day with the damp, rawness of cold rain and possible icy conditions.  In time, however, I have begun to see what I have been missing: birds which come to the Cape only during winter, especially snowy owls. Gulls sitting on bone-chilling surf watching for the waves to recede and reveal the occasional crab. I'm now forever awed about our connection to our avian friends, such as, seabirds ability to endure the frigid water. They have inspired me.

Given time, we all can adapt to our new environs, including those places we don't want to be either through adversity, new jobs, family relocation or other challenges. Only those who are forced on the streets or are living in abject poverty, such as the homeless, should not have to adapt to harsh climates.

For with the holidays approaching, I ask that those who have more and/or those who are healthy remember what they are blessed with and frankly to STOP whining. Appreciate the many activities the Cape has to offer. See what is right in front of you. Take a moment to enjoy nature in all its variations. STOP and look, feel, touch, smell, and hear. Even during the cold, bitter days when you wish for the sun, it is there, not as warm but just as enriching.

And if you do embrace the off-season on the Cape, those "gray sticks" will become refuges for owls, woodpeckers, winter robins, and raptors. Only when we accept what we cannot change do we thrive and prosper.