Border between Orleans/Eastham, National Seashore. (Merrily Cassidy, Cape Cod Times, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)
Grown men and women squabbling over a piece of sand and which town it belongs to, you think I'm kidding? When will people get over themselves and realize, as our indigenous people have for centuries, that we "don't own the land." In the case of two towns in Massachusetts, Orleans and Eastham, old timers wax nostalgic about how they used to go camping on what is now the spit where the ocean has reclaimed its territory.
A well-meaning supporter recently approached me about asking Eastham to annex a portion of their beach for ATV for Orleans. I heard his proposition and told him: "I'm on the fence about the issue." He sighed with displeasure as if I'd wounded Peter Pan.
Doesn't anyone understand what's going on outside of their own, self-involved disappointments? The ocean is retaking what is rightfully its own. Cape Cod will continue to lose beach, particularly with the escalation of climate change. We are as much at risk here as other low-lying communities are elsewhere. Tom Stone, scientist emeritus, Woods Hole Research Center, emphasized the acceleration of beach erosion in part due to the changing climate (at a March 2015 talk given at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History).
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| Nauset Barrier Spit (Panoramio.com) |
As a vacation destination, visitors come here to flee the day-to-day stressors and enjoy all the Cape has to offer. Year-round retirees and other residents must get out of their cocoon. Living here all year means accepting that along with human destruction, outside forces affect this paradise. Yes, promoting tourism is essential, and that includes places to escape to, but not places to escape from. We who live here must put aside "Kodak moments," and see the digital image of what is happening now.
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Read SHADOWWATER & DARK SEA (Shadowwater II) for more about life on Cape Cod seen through a novelist's eyes. www.shadowwater.net
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