a cold cozy cape

I’m writing this from my new regular wakeup time of 5:20am. It seems that my bladder (which does not give me a break during the night either) and brain have decided that this is an appropriate time to start the day now.

I have assumed I’ve remained a kind sleeping companion to Sammy despite this new wakeup – I silently go on my phone, I shift to a sitting position next to him to read my book, etc etc. But yesterday morning, looking for praise, I said “Aren’t I so quiet in the morning?” Sammy leaned over, gently kissed me on the eye and said “No. You are not quiet.”

:–)

I knew he was right. I think this is possibly Sammy’s experience of me being awake before him.

ANYWAY this morning, I’m out of bed writing at the TABLE so as not to DISTURB my lover.

We just have a few more days before we leave for California to be with my whole family (parents, sisters, brother-in-law and nephew) for 10 days. But last weekend we took a little trip just the two of us up to the Cape. Every since we got engaged at the house in May 2022 we have tried to go up there by ourselves every year. And May just ends up being the time we can squeeze it in. This was probably one of the earliest times we’ve been up there though and since the house is not winterized, it can be rather…..cold.

But nothing a space heater and the sheer pleasure of being by the sea can’t solve. It is truly just the greatest gift to stay at this house (and I’m so thankful to Sammy’s extended family for it).

Some of my favorite windows in the whole world. Took this on our first morning. We got rain the next two days, but this first sunrise was glorious. Pink and blue, and then smudged and softened like it was drawn with pastels.

Every morning looking at the sunrise during this trip, I just couldn’t help thinking about past and future times on the Cape. Last May, when we were here, we were talking so much about when to start trying for a baby. And to think that the next time we’re here, there will be a baby with us.

So I just leaned in to how special it was that this year was just us.

We took windy walks on the beach, read by the heater, made sandwiches and stayed present.

I really didn’t want to call this trip a “babymoon,” because I kind of don’t love the term – as least the way it’s been used around me, if often is said as if you must travel somewhere new and insane and amazing because life will end as soon as the baby is born. The whole point of traveling to the Cape is that it’s insane-and-amazing-ness is about returning every year. About feeling yourself in time. About recognizing what stays the same and what changes.

And I felt that. Standing on the landing where we’ve stood a million times, but this time pregnant, it was a deep experience.

Looking around the house and realizing how much I’m changing every day growing a baby, but that the light in the windows still comes through like it always does, was a deep experience.

Watching my husband walk along the beach, that he’s walked since he was a baby, imagining all his footsteps imprinted in the sand that gets washed away, was a deep experience.

I’m waxing poetic now, but I guess being present enough to feel time moving, even with the ache of knowing that time passes and we can’t go back, has always been profound for Sammy and I.

Because I believe that only if you feel it moving, can you hold it still for just one second.

more soon,

ella p.