I have just finished a seafood stew in a little dive on the edge of town. Recommended by the waitress at the relentlessly cheerful diner, it’s not the kind of place that would draw you in as a tourist, but the stew was delicious and cheap and the people here, all locals, have been friendly. I have a cup of coffee next to my iPad that is strong enough to get up and walk out on its own.

I go home tomorrow. I’ll have breakfast. Go to church. Visit one little folk art place on the edge of town that caught my eye this evening, and head west.

The day started and ended with walks on the beach.

The morning walk was cold. Ten degrees and windy. Truth be told, I should have stayed in the car and watched the waves, but I got out and walked. As my mind got lost in the rhythm of the sea crashing on the sand, somehow the temperature mattered less and less. My face would hurt by the time I got back to the Trooper and turned on the heat, but for an hour or so, there was no temperature, no time, no people. Just me and my thoughts. Me and my prayers.

The seagrass captivated me. In the wind, its fronds waved wildly, like a drunken dancer, across the dunes. Seagrass can withstand winds of up to eighty miles an hour with impunity, but when a person steps on it, it dies. So like people, I thought, who are capable of so much, and can handle so much adversity in life, but once they are betrayed or stepped on by those we love, we so often wither and die.

Betrayal is one of the themes of my novel. Betrayal and surviving it, and growing past it, How some do. Some don’t. And the path.

I finished the novel today, going back to the table at my hotel and working for a couple of hours in the morning, and a couple more in the afternoon. When I finished the last chapter, it was an odd feeling. I’ve suffered my way through this thing for a decade, but only began writing seriously for the past twelve months. It would be easy to beat myself up for taking so long, but I have come to realize in the last few months that there was a reason for my not writing it.

I was not ready.

My own pain was too deep. My own sense of loss was too raw. I could not think my way to write. I had not gone far enough on my own path to write with any authenticity. And that has been one of the lessons of the past few years. Talent is way less important than I used to believe. So is education or training or even creativity. What makes for good art, whatever the form, is authenticity. And at times, we are simply feeling too much to make sense, any kind of sense, of what’s real and what’s hard in our lives. We need some time. It you are slow, like me, it might take a lot of time.

Writing these past few days has come easy. I knew where I needed to go, how I needed this to end. The more I realized how Abraham’s journey was my own, something I did not know when I began, the easier it became to write. Even though nothing in the storyline actually happened to me, the emotions driving it live inside me somewhere. And so too, I hope, is the ending. Time will tell.

I took a break at mid-day and wandered the town. It is the weekend and there are a few people in town at last. It is far from a madhouse, but neither is it the ghost town I came to two days ago. I walked to the piers and looked at the fishing boats. It was odd seeing them. Everything else here is pretty sophisticated, aimed at capturing the eyes and money of people from places like Boston, Providence and New York. Jewelry shops abound, as do art galleries and antique shops. About half were open as I wandered in the cold sunlight.

My favorite was a place dedicated to oriental things. I came out with a bag of gifts, and one gift for me, a “singing bowl”, something I have seen in many worship services up here in New England, a bowl that you ring like a bell, then string the sides as it rings, prolong and modify the tone. Very meditative Very peaceful. The woman in the shop, a woman who reminded me of a character in one of my short stories, Mrs Otani, took a great deal of time letting me try and listen to a host of the bowls until I found one that resonated with me. I have no idea if it’s use will resonate with my own congregation, but if not, it will bring me peace.

Then it was back to writing in the afternoon. Finishing about four. I was exhausted. But I felt good, and took another walk on the beach.

The winds had stilled and the sun was out, so for the first time all weekend, there were a few people on the beach. Not many. Four or five. There were two young women from Japan, who were laughing in sheer glee as they ran towards the water and then back inland again as the waves crashed in and chased them up the beach. They were taking pictures of each other and the sea.

I asked if they would like a photograph together and I took their picture. They told me that it was their first time seeing the ocean. “How is it, I asked, that you live in Japan, surrounded by sea, and you have never been to the seashore. “We live in the city.” one of them answered. “It is our whole life. It never occurred to us to go there. It was not until we visited Boston and everyone said we had to go to the cape that we ever thought of it.”

The second girl suddenly looked sad. “Think of all we missed. And it was right there”

I left them and walked. My legs were sore the first night from walking on sand, but after three days of t, they seem to be used to it now. They felt strong and sure in the shifting soil. I walked around the point, and back, and drove towards town. I found a little park called Pilgrim’s Park. It’s really just a circle with a small monument proclaiming that this was the first place the pilgrims set foot on America. In the middle of town there is towering monument, a giant obelisk kind of thing that you can see for miles and miles celebrating the pilgrims stopover, but here in this little overgrown spot, is the actual place it happened.

Just past the park was a stone causeway. There was a fence along the sea, but a small opening, almost a gate to the causeway. I took that as an invitation and began to walk. I only meant to walk a short way out, but there was something mesmerizing about this stone wall jutting defiantly out into the sea and I kept hopping from rock to rock to rock until I was all the way out to small island with a lighthouse.

No one was on the island. Not a soul. I went to the tip and watched the sun go down, feeling the heat flee as the sun sank.

I had come here because something was not right. I had hoped to find out what. I feel better but I do not yet know the whys.

I think I thrive on travel. My work for many, many years has had me traveling all over the country. The nine months, I have traveled far less. Perhaps that was part of my malaise. Maybe I am just not one of those that thrives on routine.

Or perhaps I had just felt stuck, because I know I HAVE felt stuck on several fronts on my life. I am a pro active soul by nature, and being stuck is hard for me, even when I know there is nothing I can do to get unstuck, that the next steps are not mine, but someone elses to take. Maybe finishing the book jarred that loose.

Or perhaps it was something else. Perhaps it will come to me on the drive back to Vermont. Or perhaps not. Either way, it was a peaceful trip. I met people unlike me, and yet like me. I pushed through and finished something that had been eluding me for the past couple of months. I ate well and people waited on me, something that doesn’t happen much in my life. I walked. I walked a lot.

My meal is done. The coffee is cold. I’ll walk to my room in a few minutes. Tomorrow I will go to church, then wander westward. I am in no hurry. Nothing’s changed. But I have.

It’s been a good trip.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom