There is nothing like starting your morning with a cup of coffee at Joe’s in Provincetown. Of course, there is nothing like starting a morning IN Provincetown for that matter. David and I love the time we spend here whenever we are able. We have celebrated our Committment Ceremony anniversary there the first weekend in May every year since it happened in 2004. We vacation a week in August in a house we’ve rented every year since 1997. In 2005, we were married by a JP in the front yard of the same house. We spend a long weekend in early September, and usually manage to sneak in another weekend in November before the snow starts to fly. I’ve never seen it in the snow, but I think I’d even love to be stuck there in a blizzard sometime, and I hate snow.

There is a feeling I get in Ptown that is similar to the way I felt living in the village in New York City in the 1970s and how I’ve always felt in le village Montreal. It is the sensation of really belonging to a place. It’s a comfortable fit like a good Italian shoe or a down-filled chair can make you feel. I am very comfortable as a gay man, but I still hold back a teeny, tiny part of me in my everyday world.  Even though I am out at my job and to my family and friends, it’s as though I throw an edit switch each day as I leave the house that causes me to hide just a little bit of me. I  don’t even consider doing that in Ptown. There is a sense of freedom there that lets me feel like I truly belong and can just let go.

It’s been a pipe dream of mine to live my golden years there. Of course financially I will never be able to do that, I know. And maybe it would be just too much of a good thing. But still, I bet  it would be so nice.