It reminds me of a natural event I witnessed in Provincetown some twenty years ago. It was a warm summer night and Commercial Street was crowded with people. We were between playing the jukebox at the Old Colony and the pool tables at The Governor Bradford when we ran into a sober friend with a Jeep and an oversand pass. We piled in and headed out of town and into the dunes. It was a foggy night, and as the Jeep bounced and jostled us over the sand, the mist grew thicker and thicker. By the time we reached the water, we could only see a few feet in front of us. The fog obscured the horizon, blotted out the sky. Our friend with the Jeep (I don’t even remember his name), pulled out a guitar and started playing. I stood with my feet in the water and looked out in awe. It was as if the sky had fallen into the ocean, a million shining stars glittering just beneath the surface of the water. A rare night of bioluminescent phytoplankton lighting up the foggy pitch black. Waves of stars lapping our legs, cupped in our hands.

I’ve been going up to P-town every summer (and some winters) since I was 19. It’s a place I hold very dear. I love all of your details about the area and that this is your writing home. I can picture it all so clearly. Four summers ago I finally took a workshop at the Fine Arts Work Center, such a special place. Perhaps one day we will get to meet in person on the Cape!

Yes, just the axe. And some hunks were larger than others, some too big to move out with the smaller pieces:

Donna, I don’t know whether it has to do with global warming or not, but I think it came from the frozen harbor in Wellfleet, and as it got warmer, it broke off and headed our way.

I agree, Sarah. Whether rightly or wrongly, I chose to appreciate the ice floes as a natural phenomenon rather than a presage of global warming. About the weekend weather, I don’t think we’re supposed to get much–maybe just some flurries. You and Claire, stay warm where you are.

I’m dreading it in my little corner of Maine, too! Why, Universe, why??

Oh, lovely. Still, you’re celebrating huge hunks of ice, which means, I suppose, sure, bring out the axe, but maybe not the ice pick or the flame-thrower. And some hunks can be–must be–much larger than others, if you want to maintain that pretty, uneven texture.

Well I was pretty excited when I wrote this post yesterday so just now I edited it a bit to reflect that what appeared at first glance to be a frozen sea turned out in fact to be a chopped up frozen sea–the first step in the process of melting. So what fascinated me was not the smooth surface of a frozen sea but the turbulent hunks of ice created by The Great Axing.