LIMINAL LIVING #76: 9 JUNE to 15 JUNE 2025

Animals, Beach/Ocean, Birds, Community, Dreams & Sleep, Field Trip, Flowers, Food & Drink, Insects & Arachnids, Liminal Life, Public Gardens & Parks, Sense of Place/Travel, Wetlands, Wilderness and Woods, Wildflowers, Wildlife

LIMINAL LIVING #76: 9 JUNE to 15 JUNE 2025

June 15, 2025

Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)

Weather

Weather this week was chilly overall, with high temperatures ranging from 79.2°F to 60.8°F, averaging 67.6°F. Lows ranged very narrowly from 50°F to 54°F, averaging 51.7°F. We got a little more than 1/3 of an inch of rain this week but because of recent rains prior to this week and lack of sun/heat lately, some of the vegetable garden still hasn’t dried out (at all). I planted bean seeds into heavy wet clay on Monday — we’ll see whether any of those emerge.

Beginnings/Firsts

We’ve been to Cape Cod nine times but had never driven the Shore Road from Provincetown into Truro (changes name to Short Road in Truro, not sure why), so we did it this time. It’s fun! Views of Cape Cod Bay, lots of little motels and guest houses, small shops and corner groceries, cottages and shacks, pride flags … and more contractors’ vans than I have ever seen in one small space before.

Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post

some birds heard by Merlin on the Cape this week

Wandering

We wandered to Cape Cod from Wednesday to Saturday this week, staying in Orleans and spending all our time in the lower and outer Cape towns of:

ORLEANS — all breakfasts, Ice Cream Café, The Cove Motel

Cove Motel

Orleans in town and eating

This grey shingled house and row of hydrangeas, which we walked by a few times, seems quintessentially Cape Cod to me.

EASTHAM — CC National Seashore Salt Pond Visitors Center’s Nauset Marsh Trail & Buttonbush Trail

WELLFLEET — Marconi Station Site/Atlantic White Cedar Swamp Trail; Great Island Trail; and two dinners and a lunch

Marconi Site/White Cedar Swamp

Great Island Trail

This walk took us about 5 hours, because after trotting along on the Cape Cod Bay beach for a few miles we tried several trails to return via the marsh or Beach Island but they kept sputtering out due to unpassable inundated areas or full-blown tidal creeks. Actual vultures circled above us and we noticed several dead bird bodies and a large (probably non-human) skeleton in four or five pieces. We were racing against a high tide now because the walk was taking us quite a bit longer than expected, so retracing our last hour’s (or more) steps to return to where we’d left the Bay beach (with its soft and less walkable sand) seemed like a last resort. Eventually we found a sort of trail of dried marsh grass skirting the wetter marsh (which looked familiar from having made this trek in past years) and made it back to terra firma. That was the day we hit over 28,000 steps.

Wellfleet Meals

This sign for our parking space at Mac’s Shack —— “Center Car Here or else”

PROVINCETOWN — CC National Seashore Province Lands Visitors Center/Race Point Beach and bike trails, Herring Cove Beach, and a drive on Shore Road in P’town, which we hadn’t ever done before

Race Point

Herring Cove Beach (on Cape Cod Bay)

… and in SANDWICH, which is right after you come over the bridge, where we visited Heritage Museums & Gardens both on the way over and on the way back home, and had lunch on Saturday at the Pilot House restaurant.

Heritage Museums & Gardens (Wed. & Sat.)

Many many cicadas at Heritage, alive, dead, and molted exoskeletons! We also visited the carousel & art museum, where a special cranberry exhibit was showing, and the car museum — more about those in a separate post.

Pilot House (lunch)

I had hoped to get to a restaurant or two and maybe a beachy trail in Chatham but we just weren’t oriented that way this week (and Impudent Oyster wasn’t open during hours we could get there around the hikes and tides).

I’ll do a separate Field Trip post on this trip eventually, with many more photos and details.

At home, we walked in town on Tues. and Sunday, visiting a local art gallery on the Tuesday walk.

at home: art gallery

An exhibit called Colors of Land & Water by Corbett Leithart

Curiosity & Discoveries

We found this skeleton on the Great Island Trail in Wellfleet. No idea what it is.

This shark sculpture at the Herring Cove Beach Visitors Center, made with 100% plastic marine debris collected at Cape Cod National Seashore beaches ——

Creating

My husband had given me gift certificates to the motel and to the Wellfleet Pearl for Christmas 2023 and we finally found/created the time and energy to make this trip!

Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)

Body/Mind: Only two strength training workouts this week (2 hours), what with the Cape Cod trip. But we walked abundantly there, including Thursday when I totalled 23,052 steps and Friday with 28,281 steps. Overall, I walked more than 9,000 steps every day, over 11,000 steps on six days, and over 12,000 steps on four days. I got a haircut on Monday. I participated via Zoom in a hybrid Dharma Sunday with Liz Monson speaking on Finding Wholeness in Fragmentation: Remembering Who We Really Are.

Cat: I cleaned both of the cat’s litter boxes on Monday and coiled all the bedroom window blind cords where he couldn’t reach them while we were away. I also wrote up notes for the catsitter and ordered more cat litter (which arrived on Tuesday). He had nine catsitter visits while we were away.

Gardening/Yard

I spent only a couple of hours in my garden this week, and enjoyed visiting Heritage Museums & Gardens instead, absorbing the beauty, the sounds, colours, & scents; revisiting favourite spots and finding new ones; and getting a few ideas for my own garden. On Monday, pre-trip, I planted saved scarlet runner beans and a handful of seeds from a new package of High Mowing Mardi Gras bush bean mix in the vegetable garden and other spots I’ve forgotten now. My husband pruned dead wood from the tulip poplar.

Some of what’s happening in the garden this week:

Nesting – cleaning/maintenance, food, supplies, financial/administrative

Cleaning/Maintenance: I cleaned the downstairs toilets on Monday. I guess that’s it!

Financial/Admin: I backed up my laptop on Sunday (hadn’t done it since December oops).

Supplies: Ordered cat litter on Monday (arrived on Tues.). I stocked up on 12 jars of whole artichoke hearts from Cucina Amore on Sunday.

Food: On Monday we had Sunday’s leftovers (that tuna puttanesca dish) and the delicious homemade celery-zucchini soup that a friend (RL) brought to us that day. Tuesday, more of those leftovers with another can of tuna and some artichoke hearts to plump it up. We were away Wed-Friday dinners at the Cape, where we ate a lot of fish (cod, mahi, shrimp, oysters lobster, salmon) and veggies for dinners/lunches, eggs and egg sandwiches for breakfast (and wonderful cheddar chive scones). When we got home Sat., we split a cup of shrimp and corn chowder and an order of fries that we brought from the Pilot House in Sandwich, where we’d had lunch. Sunday was grilled hot dogs, corn, and couscous with garlic (ours; only three heads left from last year’s harvest!) and artichoke hearts.

the celery-zucchini soup and sourdough bread from our friend (RL)

our snacky dinner outside in Orleans, MA on Friday night

Sleeping & Dreaming

Not a good sleep week by most standards. Between the ample ambient light all night (outside lamps shone through closed blinds), the sunrise at 4:10 a.m., the unfamiliar bed, no calming cat, and the change in schedule (we went to bed earlier to get up earlier to fit meals and trails into the few days we had), my sleep was interrupted and sparse while on the Cape, as well as on Monday at home due to a 7:30am haircut appt. Sleep scores were poor overall, ranging from 72 to 87, averaging 80.1. My average time asleep this week was 6 hours 55 mins. REM sleep accounted for about 12 hours and deep sleep for almost 9 hours, which isn’t bad, considering.

Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching

Reading

BOOKS: I finished Anne Tyler’s Three Junes while we were at the Cape; it’s really more a novella than a novel, a simple story about middle-aged Gail (and told from her perspective) and her ex-husband Max around their daughter Debbie’s wedding, set in Baltimore (of course). Next up is The God of the Woods (2024) by Liz Moore.

OTHER

These articles/essays:

Things I or others have said to my child that have given me pause: A short but ever growing list, by Kelton Wright at Shangrilogs, 15 June 2025. These things include “It’s icky outside!” [weather is not icky and you can’t convince me otherwise], “You can just wipe that on your pants” [you absolutely can, and your shirt if you’ve dressed well], “What an angel!”, “Jesus Fucking Christ”, “Science!” [totally agree], “Oh, he’s trying!”, “Skinny minnie”, “Bad dog”, and “He.” Yes, yes, yes.

Interview with Matthew Walker: Promoting Our Sleep Health: Our “superpower” and a pivotal modulator of healthy aging, with Eric Topol at Ground Truths, 14 June 2025. The glymphatic system, which operates best during deep sleep and which is theorised to cleanse the brain like the lymphatic system does the body.

They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling. By Kashmir Hill, New York Times, 13 June 2025. (Gifted) “‘This world wasn’t built for you,’ ChatGPT told him. ‘It was built to contain you. But it failed. You’re waking up.’”

this poem

Watching

Nothing while we were away. At home, the U.S. Open (golf; yay, JJ Spaun!), and episode of “Maigret,” and some “Vera.”

Listening

Connections & Community

Local Support: Every place we ate on the Cape was a local independent restaurant, including Hole In One and Hot Chocolate Sparrow for breakfasts, the Ice Cream Café for ice cream and a latte (all those in Orleans); the Wellfleet Pearl for two dinners (outside) and Mac’s Shack (outside) for a lunch (both in Wellfleet); and the Pilot House for lunch (in Sandwich); and we shopped at Friends Marketplace grocery in Orleans on two evenings, the second to buy provisions (wine, cheese, crackers, olives) for a snacky dinner sitting by the Orleans Cove on Friday night. Here at home I bought several items at the local farmstand on Sunday. My husband volunteered at the local car museum for 4.5 hours.

Relationships: A friend (RL) came over on Monday for a couple of hours, and she arrived carrying homemade celery-zucchini soup and a loaf of sourdough bread! Lots of texting with my sisters and cousin from the beach!

Donations: Renewed our membership in Heritage Museums & Gardens (Sandwich, MA) this week.