A Childhood Remembered

When I was a child, the tiptop of the Sagamore Bridge loomed like a giant Ferris wheel on the last mile of Route 3—a bridge between the school year and sweet summer that never failed to send my stomach into orbit. Crossing the canal was the passage to freedom. Behind us were the duties and predictability of stately, staid suburbia. Ahead was a land of sand and scrub pines, poised precariously and perfectly at the edge of possibility.

A writer revisits the carefree Cape Cod of her youth.

Summer days at my grandmother’s house on Osterville’s Eel River, stretched long and languorously before me. Waking up without a schedule, ready to beach, boat, clam, or bike on a whim seemed—and still seems—the ultimate of luxuries. We own our own home now in nearby Centerville, but sometimes I get bogged down being a grown-up.

Photography by Stacey Hedman

Recently, I decided to retrace my childhood steps in an effort to reclaim the sheer joy of a Cape Cod day lived in the moment. The Cape did not let me down.

It seemed only right to start the day at our old house. The owners, away at the time, cheerily granted me permission to roam and reminisce. I arrived by bike, the mode of transportation that for all those childhood summers defined independence.