Personal Narrative #1

Jane Frye

Chatham, Massachusetts had always been a big part of my mother’s family. Her parents and brothers would spent their summers there, while learning and teaching to sail at Stage Harbor Yacht Club. So when my parents got married and had all four of us, the plan was to also spend our summers on the Cape while learning and teaching to sail at Stage Harbor Yacht Club. But the plan changed when my parents got divorced. My mother wasn’t ready to take all four of us, all under the age of 10, to Chatham for an entire summer. As a result our summers were spent in our small hometown, spending our days at the local country club taking tennis, swimming, and golf lessons. Everyday was a new adventure, and so we had no reason to question how we spent our summer. My mother, on the other hand, did.

The spring of 6^th grade my mother sat my brother, sisters, and myself down and told us that this summer was going to be different. We would be spending our summer in Chatham, taking sailing lessons rather than tennis, swimming, and golf lessons. None of us were happy. From what we knew our summers were perfect and going to the Cape would be an uncomfortable change. However, my mother knew that living in Chatham with her parents and siblings and our cousins would be the best thing for our family. By June we still weren’t convinced, though it didn’t matter, because our suburban was packed up and we were on our way to Chatham.

The first two summers were a lot more fun than what we had anticipated them to be. Activities such as going on the boat and tubing, that we used to engage in only a few times a week, we did everyday. In addition, we were now able to do the activities that we had always wanted to do, whenever we wanted. It wasn’t always easy, most families, such as our cousins, had been spending their summers in Chatham for years so we didn’t have many friends and weren’t as good as they were at sailing. By the end of the summer our love for Chatham and sailing won us over and, consequently, we told our mother we wanted to do it again next summer.

From that summer on we continued to fall in love with Chatham. Today, it is a huge part of my life. When school gets out I hug my friends good bye for three months and head down to the Cape. As sad as it is to miss out and not see them for such a long time, I would never stay home. Chatham is an escape from real life. I spend my days out in the sun teaching children how to sail or just laying on the beach. I spend my nights with my friends who are from all over the world. The immediate sense of happiness I feel when I cross over the Cape Cod Canal is a feeling no other place provides.

Spending my summers on the Cape has shaped who I am and I plan to make it shape my children as well. There is no doubt in my mind that I will raise my children in Chatham over the summer. I want them to be able to meet all the people I have met through sailing. I want them to experience all the wonderful opportunities I was given by going to Chatham. And I want them to fall in love with the feeling of being on the Cape because there is nothing else like it.