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A Cape Cod Notebook can be heard every Tuesday morning at 8:45am and afternoon at 5:45pm.It's commentary on the unique people, wildlife, and environment of our coastal region.A Cape Cod Notebook commentators include:Robert Finch, a nature writer living in Wellfleet who created, 'A Cape Cod Notebook.' It won the 2006 New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing.

Naturalist's Moment: A Quickie at the Beach

detroitstylz / flickr

One evening a little before seven o’clock I pulled into the vast empty parking lot at Marconi Beach in South Wellfleet. I had just come from Russ’s Marconi Beach Restaurant, a place I like to go two or three times a year for ribs. I always enjoy Russ’s Shakespearian innkeeper banter, the way he seems to know every customer personally, his hearty and infectious good humor that seems to rub off on everyone there. I had ordered my usual: the half-slab barbecued ribs dinner with coleslaw, baked beans, and smashed potatoes with gravy. I was on my way to the Wellfleet Cinemas to see the 7:25 showing of a high-gloss trashy movie in 3-D and, since it was such a lovely evening and I had a few extra minutes, I decided I had time for a quickie at the beach.

So I drove into the empty parking lot and stood on the wooden platform halfway down the stairs. It was one of those classic, early spring evenings on the beach, which looked more like a stage set than something real. The moon, a few days shy of full, hung high in the clear sky, its orange reflection torn into fragments by the agitated ocean. The scene was infused with lingering twilight, a charged setting where I could easily imagine both a beach murder and a beach romance taking place.

Once again I was struck by how cinematic the Cape’s landscape is, especially the Outer Beach. It’s always seemed odd to me that more movies have not been set here. Of the few that have, the most famous, of course, is The Thomas Crown Affair – the original 1968 version, that is, not the 1999 remake - starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. There’s a scene in that movie where McQueen takes Dunaway on a wild joy ride in a dune buggy through the Provincelands (a scene, I later learned, that was shot with the blessing of the National Seashore). I was an impressionable twenty-something when that movie came out and that scene remains an indelible romantic fantasy in my imagination, impregnable to later environmental awareness.

But I was alone that evening, the beach was empty, the surf was low, almost inaudible. The salt air lightly rasped my nostrils, the cold wind off the ocean shivered through my light jacket, and the low dark vegetation stretched out sparsely across the russet plain to the south and north. And that was all.

This beach is one of the most evocative landscapes I know, rich in both human and natural drama. Over the years, in innumerable encounters with it, it has spoken eloquently and mysteriously to me. This evening I had it all to myself and I waited, a little impatiently, I think, for it to give me something. But it remained mute, withheld. The earth, I think, closes in on itself when we do not give it our full attention, when, for instance, we’re still savoring a big meal and looking forward to mindless entertainment. The beach refuses to be a preview. Nature does not offer herself to one who would slip her in between trivial events, between gluttony and lust. She will not hold counsel with us when we are already going someplace else as we arrive.

“Come back when you’re ready to have a conversation,” the beach seemed to say. So I walked back to the car, closed the door, and drove to the movies.

Robert Finch is a nature writer living in Wellfleet. 'A Cape Cod Notebook' won the 2006 New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing.