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Cape Cod, Nantucket, friendship through the fog

Cape Cod: A spigot of land jutting into the mighty sea, cod leaping onto the shore. Friends reunited, ghosts from the past, we took a final stroll along its fog-dipped depths before being cast back to shore and our disparate lives.

Seventeen years after college, we spent a weekend exploring Cape Cod, content to let the wind take us where it would. Nantucket, someone decided, offered a low-key charm, perfectly suited to our purposes.

We jettisoned over to Nantucket on the ferry, misty saltwater splashing our faces. The morning sunlight welcomed us, as we landed just in time to catch the Daffodil Days festival and the earthy charm of the island.

A blue 1965 Mustang convertible rounded the cobblestone bend, yellow flowers blooming from its grill, a member of a caravan parade, winding past quilt stores and glass shops.

After browsing through local shops we ventured further out on narrow streets, admiring classic columned buildings and perfectly proportioned churches.

Most trees were grey and winter bare, but the pink and white apple blossoms evoked a serene mood, opening for our arrival, embracing the sunlight, framing the clapboard houses.

Late April on the Cape offers lower airfares and sparse crowds. Too early for whale-watching, instead we discovered the pace locals enjoy before summer weather brings heavy traffic and pricey hotel rates from May thru October.

Here mailmen deliver the mail on foot in shorts, pushing a cart from house to house. On an island only 14 by 6 miles you can expect this kind of service. Locals gather at the Nantucket Bake Shop, nestled inland, away from the main drag. Sitting curbside, munching on homemade pastries, we shared their world.

Saltbox structures, grey with white trim, solidly lined each block, taking us back in time to the mid 1600s when Nantucket was settled, first as a whaling town, then an artists colony.

Back on the mainland we ambled up the Cape, destination: Provincetown. With time to kill we stopped at isolated lighthouses whenever the mood struck.

Out here on the cusp of spring, a stroll down a wooden boardwalk dead ended at the sea. Fog tapped the shoulder of the shoreline. A peaceful solitude overtook me here. And a sense of easy kinship. Could life really be this good?

Many years ago, in the dorms, we saw each other every day. Today we connect by an occasional phone call and a Christmas card. These are the people I think of when I'm tired or sinking beneath life's concrete weight, waiting for the light to find me again. I know they're out there. Often times, that's enough.

In Newport, Rhode Island, the Cliffwalk, is an oceanside trail with sidewalks and rocky shoreline, that affords a distant view of majestic mansions and life beyond Target and Menards. It was our last hour before the airport beckoned.

"Let's do this every other year" we agreed. That was seven years ago now. Our lives resumed, sweeping us up again: births and deaths, job transfers and unemployment, soccer practices and science fairs, hysterectomies and needle biopsies. The carousel keeps spinning.

Some days when the solitude of a busy life overtakes me, I remember the three who knew me when, and our moment in the cold sun on the windblown Cape.