Jutting into the Atlantic and looking from the air like an angry fist raised toward heaven, Provincetown (or Ptown), Massachusettes, is instead a haven for ethnic, artistic, religious and sexual tolerance. It is where the fringes of society become the majority and in addition, owns bragging rights to some of the best beaches and seafood in the World. It may be at the ‘end’ geographically, but it is first in many things including the first landing of the Pilgrims on American soil and more recently, gay marriage. And ah…the beaches! Half of the town is washed in beaches. Wherever the eyes rest, land, sea and horizon converge.
Strolling down Commercial Street, the town’s epicenter, one sees as many drag queens and same sex couples as families cavorting in and out of the restaurants, shops and art galleries. I found a unique texture of sequins and New England quaint where the nightlife continues throughout the day; where jazz, rock and folk music drifts from doorways and the smell of everything from hot dogs to the finest seafood compete for a stomach’s attention. Street performers and millionaires are equally at home here. There is a refined circus atmosphere that can made me feel much too conventional for my own good.
There is also a universal law in operation here I haven’t quite figured out: the closer one gets to the sea, the more expensive the seafood. It should be the opposite. I want lobster and I’m going to get it if I have to steal it from someone else’s plate and run like hell. Since the town’s population swells from approximately 3,000 in the winter to over 30,000 in the summer, my lobster and I could get easily lost in the 
eccentric crowd if necessary. And if worse becomes even worse, I can run into the sea screaming that I am returning it to its natural habitat. This is how my mind works. Instead, I find some reasonably priced as ‘Market Value’, order one and am given a bib to wear with a picture of a smiling lobster emblazoned upon it as if being boiled in water is a lobster’s favorite pastime. I forego the bib and eat my 2-pound crustacean while overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Bliss. Salt water flows through my veins instead of blood and P-Town is a welcomed transfusion.
Later, I’ll go on a whale watch from MacMillan Wharf and visit the breeding ground of right whales in Cape Cod Bay. There’s live theater, 8 miles of bike trails, self-guided nature trails, mountains of sand dunes, the electric energy of the street and the solace of the waves endlessly rolling toward shore. Then, on to Race Point, the very tip of the tip where the land ends and the ocean begins, where the fringe-dwellers dwell and the rest of us only wish we could.
Jayni is a poet, musician, student of the esoteric and travel addict who for now, lives on Cape Cod. When she’s not traveling or writing, she’s thinking about traveling and writing. The remainder of her time is spent with her slightly-off offspring and friends who tolerate her eccentricities and pray a great deal. Her poetry and writing has been published in a number of magazines and she is currently working on her first novel.
Written by Jayne B. Stearns
