To New Beginnings

The year has come to an end and what a year it has been. I’ve met so many new friends and incredible people this past year. I also experienced many new things. Most of which can be read right here. Trips to Atlanta, a small town in Tennessee, Savannah, New York City, Westhampton, MA, Puerto Rico, Vieques, Boston and Providence have truly been fun.

I start my 6th year, January 1st, on the sandbar that is Provincetown. How strange to think that it has been that long. In that time, I started a business and sold it, renovated a house, continued my real estate career in perhaps the worst market since the great depression, explored my creative side through writing and created and hosted radio and television programs. I even raised an Italian Greyhound I never anticipated having. Everything combined seems so unreal, yet a little too real.

The intense summers followed by equally vacant winters take their toll on a single guy out here. I even thought about leaving a few times. New York City has been a big draw, in fact, most people I know who live here are from the big apple.

But now, no matter where I visit, I realize that Provincetown is my home. I’ve come of age here.
I know I’m home when every other face I see on the street or in the store, says “hi.” It is comforting and I feel as if I‘m Jessica Fletcher walking the streets of Cabot Cove. I giggle to myself when I hear the grocery store still referred to as the A+P after years of being the Grand Union and is now a Stop and Shop. Change is not an easy thing here but it happens constantly. 

I smile when I see Ellie singing in her fur coat in front of a fenced off, vacant town hall in the dead of winter and says “hi mike.” I know I’m home when the clerk at the candy store knows my order as I’m walking in the door, or the post office clerk has the stamps ready for me because the only time I visit the counter is for postage.

I anticipate the arrival of my friends from off-cape on Friday the weekends they come out. And I watch their sad faces when I hug them goodbye on Sunday, knowing what they feel and knowing I will most likely not have to feel that again. Leaving this magical place is not easy.

Free movie nights at The Cape End Inn, Town Meetings, High Tide in the east end during storms, Taco Tuesday, Joe Coffee, Comfort Food Sunday at Bayside Betsy’s, Sunday brunch at Fanizzi’s, Coffee House at The Mews, Tea Dance, Drag Shows, Choral Concerts, dinner parties, great restaurants… my goodness the list goes on and on…and only here.

This New Years Eve, after being away for the past two, I will visit Herring Cove Beach to watch the sunset and say goodbye to a truly incredible, exciting, sad and happy year. 2008 brought much personal growth and was the start of a new chapter in my life. I learned to let go of the past and extend gratitude to what has been. I now look forward to what is yet to be.

I hope you have a happy and healthy new year! Thanks for reading my blog this past year and sharing in my experience. This blog will be dedicated mostly to Provincetown news in 2009.

Feel free to send me an email at mike.dubour@verizon.net and remember to play it safe!