Spring Comes To Montauk

The spring equinox is the start of the calendar year in many traditions, and it feels like a new beginning these past few weeks. I was lucky enough to be in Montauk, New York, with my wife when March 21st came. We were almost the first New Yorkers to see the sun rise in the “new year” – almost, that is, except we chose to sleep in a bit longer rather than drive the ten minutes from town to lighthouse, the easternmost point, to really be the first.

We had beers and fish and chips at Shangwong’s, and took long hikes through Camp Hero, and Montauk Point, and around the lighthouse, and just took in the emptiness.

I’ve noticed tourists everywhere have a habit of going to the end of peninsulas, seemingly just for the hell of it. We enjoyed Montauk so much, even in the off season, that I made a short list of things to see when I go back, almost all of which were closed in March: the Lighthouse Museum; the Montauk Indian Museum; a hike by the “Walking Dunes” in Hither Hills; a spa in a salt cave; and the Maritime Museum in nearby Amagansett.

Or maybe next time I’ll go even earlier in the season, when fewer things are open.

Sunrise in Montauk, March 21, 2017.

Montauk

The beaches on the ocean side

come sloping down from shrubland –

these piles of boulders and dirt

scraped from the Berkshires and pushed

sloppily to sea. It still invites

a sleepy person to sit and face

the south, luxuriating on

an Ice Age glacier that lost its

vitality and shriveled. There’s

nothing to do in Montauk but

watch the sun and moon come and go.

You hear the jingle of keys from

your motel room: your neighbors,

also from the city, people

who have lists of miniature

experiences that must be had,

detailed plans for where to go and

what time to get there and what to bring,

and cherish crossing things off their list,

are up before the light: They’ve heard

the best precise place, the point

to which the sun reveals herself

while wearing her most garish bonnet,

is furthest to the east, beside

the lighthouse, but you’ve succumbed to

the nothingness: You plant your elbows

in the sand outside your door and crane

your neck and watch the shadows

stretch out and breathe in, the way

the continent sees them.