Swan Song
A Cape Cod recap, beach reading and writing on vacation
Hello, friends!
It’s been a minute. My body stayed longer on East Coast time than I anticipated. Why is flying west so much harder on the body? Because our time zone is just far enough into the past?
Am I hurting your brain?
It’s not easy to get to Cape Cod. A six hour flight to Boston followed by a 60-90 minute ride on a bus.
Then it’s another 20-30 minutes over the bridge to East Sandwich, down a very bumpy road that turns into a rock-filled street that leads to the crunchy, shell filled driveway of our rental.
But that first glimpse after I walk up the stairs of the house and see the stone-filled beach, the Cape Cod Bay whose blue hue changes with the temperament of the sky, its temperature bone chilling all through the summer, makes everything worth it. Here, the blue is blissfully endless – except for the green of the marsh and the white and pink of the beach roses.
Every time I see that view, my chest unknots, and I take the deepest breaths I’ll take all year…
We had enough warm, sunny days this year that I read four and a half books (the half was one i started a day or two before the trip) on the deck with the whoosh of the tide, the fluttering of hummingbirds and chirps of sandpipers as gentle ambiance.
After my mom and I both read Elin Hilderbrand’s final Nantucket book, Swan Song, we drove to Hyannis and took the ferry over to Nantucket where we fangirled as we passed famed local spots featured in Elin’s novels — The Chicken Box, Cru, Provisions, Bartlett Farms. After we bounced through the shops downtown, we had beers and nachos at Cisco Brewers.
At the back of the brewery, there was a tent sectioned off for a large party. While waiting on the dock for the ferry, I had noticed some people with garment bags and overheard a younger couple greeting an older couple and their two perfectly well behaved labradors, talking about a wedding on the island. We figured it was a welcome party for the guests.
After three beers, we hopped in the Cisco Brewers shuttle (it’s free!) back to town with a group from the party. I chatted up the girl sitting next to me and learned that the wedding was out in Sconset at the chapel and casino. Cisco was the welcome lunch, they were going back to their hotel to get ready for the evening welcome drinks. The bride’s family has a house on Nantucket. The girl in the van, who had a huge rock on her finger, has a family house in Hyannis. She lives in Boston and works in finance, though it isn’t her passion. She just got an internship at the firm her Sophomore year of college (in 2016, meep) and now she works there.
Clearly this girl is going through it, I hope she gets out of finance. It sounds miserable and judging by the ring, she does not need the money.
I did some light stalking and found out that the venue, Sconset Casino, is not actually a casino but some sort of country club (how bougie and old money is it to name an old ass country club/event venue “casino”). Also, I found some of the couple’s photos. They’re very young and their tablescapes were absolutely gorgeous.
When we got back to town, we had a farewell cocktail at the red-walled Club Car (another elin location), a tiny train car attached to a navy-blue walled restaurant. The car was half-full of middle aged men and Mean Girls was playing on the TV. They had the most hors d'oeuvre vibe apps imaginable, including pigs in a blanket. Unfortunately, I did not have time to consume them.
Aside from the stellar nachos, over the week and change I was there, I indulged in my favorite Cape Cod delicacy, stuffed quahog. Some excellent cups of clam chowder. A (lobster) knuckle sandwich and a lobster roll. Scallop risotto. Lobster eggs benedict. A melt-in-your-mouth salmon roll. A really satisfying sandwich with lettuce, tomato, turkey, cheddar, bacon and avocado. An ice cream puff topped with hot fudge reminiscent of an eclair that we saw another table order and decided we had to have. Also, many Cape Cod chips.
Every day I walked my parent’s dog Frank and did yoga on the deck in the sun surrounded by the sounds of the bay.
On my last night, I played Uno with my parents and lost every round but one. We watched Seinfeld, and I laughed hysterically at “the dog” episode because the way Jerry is with the dog he’s forcibly watching is how my parents are with Frank — “I can’t go out tonight, I have to watch the dog. Yes I’m talking about you (to the dog)! He’s insane!”
Everything I brought back from the Cape
yet another cape cod mug (i now have 3, this one is white with a purple interior)
two dvds (the wedding date and minority report)
six books (a shakespeare, top shelf; a classic, second shelf; literary fiction, third shelf; general fiction and a thriller, fifth shelf)
a trinket dish the color of my bookshelf (with the outline of a whale in the middle)
three kinds of tea (two earl grey varieties and a ginger, turmeric blend)
a lavender nantucket sweatshirt (it’s so cute, i couldn’t not)
a springy (but very warm) pullover and very preppy striped, three quarter sleeve top from ll bean
a cropped tee and branded owala water bottle from cisco brewers (this is what happens after three beers)
Some Things
there is nothing like sitting on top of a picnic table, looking at a body of water, while listening to voice notes – except, of course, taking a shower outside (i believe an outdoor shower is half the appeal of a beach house)
i had to ask TSA if dvds counted as electronics (they don’t, lol)
two restaurants we went to had the sharpie gel pen i love and my mom said, “ooo! this does write well!”
then don’t YOU go to paris with him!
listen, i’m happy for taylor that she’s so whole and healed that she hasn’t been able to get herself to re-record reputation, but i do also want those bonus tracks….
on the flip side, i’m very excited that i can now have a reputation summer (icymi: taylor bought back her masters thanks to eras tour revenue)
avengers: infinity war is my go to movie to fall asleep to on airplanes (i think literally no one would guess this)
lena dunham essays still hit
the cast for peacock’s adaptation of elin hilderbrand’s five star weekend is so good!
🚨 rebecca serle’s next book, once and again, is dropping next spring 🚨 it’s about a family of women who each have the gift to, just once, turn back time… i’m so in
did you watch the goodnight and good luck livestream? can you believe that’s the first time they’ve ever live broadcasted a broadway play? can you believe we got to just be with george clooney live? like he was right there!
aside from the clooney of it all, the show did make me feel ~some type of way~ history, indeed, repeats itself, and that’s both comforting because we’ve been through this before and beat it back, but it’s also horrifying that we don’t learn, that we’re not doing better
What I’m Reading
For me, my stay on the Cape is not complete without a visit to Isaiah Thomas Books, a used bookstore in a bright pink house filled with book cases. It’s the kind of place where you sit on the floor to read the spines of the books on the bottom shelves because you don’t want to miss anything. My mom and I both walked out with four books, and my dad walked out with five. It was a perfect rainy afternoon.
I also visited two book stores on Nantucket – Mitchell’s Book Corner and Nantucket Bookworks. Both were so charming and cozy. Somehow, I practiced a modicum of self control and only bought one book.
Set Piece by Lana Schwartz - This is another 831 stories novella. Jack is hot off a highly watched BBC series when he meets CJ at a bar and spends the night with her. Five years later, the two meet again on the set of a Great Gatsby adaptation — he’s starring as Nick Carraway and she’s designing the set.
Forced proximity makes for great romantic tension! It’s short, it’s snappy and it’s full of movie references.
Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand - Elin’s last Nantucket novel finds police chief Ed Kapenash ready to retire, but not before he’s thrown into one last case when the house of the Richardsons, a wealthy couple new to the island, burns down, and their assistant is missing. This multi-POV story moves between Kapenash’s investigation and the start of the summer – when the Richardsons move into their $22 million house, their assistant arrives on the same ferry as Kapenash’s daughter and Blond Sharon is processing her divorce.
This Might Hurt by Stephanie Wrobel - After the death of their mother, Natalie’s sister goes away to a wellness center on an island off the coast of Maine in search of peace. When Natalie gets a vaguely threatening email from the wellness center’s address, she makes the journey out to bring her sister home, but her sister may be too far gone for Natalie to reach.
This one is also multi-POV, and it is dark!
The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager - Casey is a recently widowed actress who escapes to her family’s lake house in Vermont after her turn on Broadway implodes due to her drinking. She relishes her drunken solitude, until she saves a neighbor from drowning. After the two strike up a friendship, Casey begins staring into the windows of the glass house she lives in with her husband across the lake.
Once Casey starts picking up the binoculars, she sees more than she’s meant to, and when her neighbor goes missing, she becomes consumed with finding her and is confronted with some dark truths.
My mom picked this up at a sidewalk sale, and another woman said “the twist is so crazy!!!” We were like “okay! sounds good!” and bought it for one dollar. The twist IS crazy! I don’t think that woman was into it, but I was!
Confess by Colleen Hoover - Auburn moves to Dallas hoping to take control of her life when she meets Owen, an artist who turns the confessions of passersby dropped through his studio’s mail slot into paintings. They have an instant connection, but Owen has a secret that could destroy everything Auburn is working towards.
This is considered a “new adult” novel because the protagonists are like, twenty-two, and maybe that’s why I liked it – it’s got Hoover’s sprinkling of domestic turbulence but with a romance I was actually rooting for! Also, Hoover says all the confessions in the book are real ones provided by her readers. That’s some juice.
What I’m Writing
I brought three notebooks to the Cape—
a yellow pocket-sized moleskine
the novel 3 notebook
a previously unused notebook with narwhals on the cover
And I actually wrote in all of them!
I carried the pocket sized moleskine around in my purse and unselfconsciously took it out while in public to jot down notes. It was so creatively freeing that I’m like… why am I not doing this daily in my regular life?
I wrote the majority of two scenes for Novel 3. One of which is between the two main characters. Up until this point, I’ve been writing scenes for them individually but hadn’t gotten them together on the page. It feels like I’m finally getting to know them and building some momentum within the story.
It turns out that going on vacation is helpful for a vacation-centered novel. Perhaps I need to write from the beach this summer. What is clear from this trip is that I needed to be by the ocean so, so bad, which is a funny thing to say for someone who lives in Southern California, but I live in Hollywood. I’m not gazing at the ocean on the reg. And my favorite beach is not safe from wildfire toxins so the question of the summer is… what beach is safe (if you know, lmk. summer isn’t real without beach days)??
Anyway, blue theory is real for all these reasons and also because I finally, finally got a germ of an idea for my long-anticipated (by me) Cape-set novel. By which I mean, I started writing random bullet points in my Notes app (as well as a two sentence opening in the narwhal notebook). This is how all my other novels (“all my other novels” lmao) started so it bodes well for its future when I revisit it a year or two from now, LOL.
Circling back to history repeating itself, I read a couple letters between Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald before I went to bed the other night and came across this—
From Scott to Zelda, April 26, 1934—
The outside world, the political situation, etc., is still gloomy and it does effect everybody directly, and will inevitably reach you indirectly, but try to seperate yourself from it by some form of mental hygiene—if necessary, a self-invented one.
That’s all from me this week, stay tuned!
love u frank
Bye buddy hope you find your dad