July 16, 2023, Sunday—
The mockingbird’s song under the Cape May Lighthouse was hauntingly familiar, especially to Brooklynites–whoooooOOOOP. whoooooOOOOP. whoooooOOOOP. whoooooOOOOP. we-AWWW. we-AWWW. we-AWWW. we-AWWW.
Car alarm.
After omelettes and hash browns at Dock Mike’s Pancake House, everyone went home but us. So, we climbed the lighthouse’s 199 steps and asked the guide when they added safety railing. (In the 1930s, as soon as a lighthouse keeper had small kids.)
Sometimes, I wish I had a transcript of an afternoon—the sum of everything we are, which today included making a budget before dinner in our parked Subaru, AC on, rain sheeting the windshield. We ventured out after the rain for vegan hotdogs and Ben & Jerry’s through rows of sherbert houses.
What I want to remember, though, is how Rachel coaxed me to the part of beach roped off to prohibit dogs, to see the baby terns. Balls of bird with ash gray caps toodled inside the twine. Opportunistic surfers and ghost crabs merengued with the rain-fat waves.
