Setting

We arrived back in New York on Thursday evening, almost a week ago today. I can feel my body gradually begin to vibrate with the tempo of the environs here in Manhattan - and I miss the almost unbounded quality of the embodied experience of the woods and lake. It's been difficult getting back into the hard hitting swing of things. Yet slowly (but surely) I am beginning to feel the enthusiasm for the term hiding behind the sadness of losing my weeks of freedom. The best news is I feel an intellectual vigor beginning to sprout. Just in time for the big project!

The memories of home are pretty strong the past couple days. This morning I look back at the setting summer in the hopes of still catching a glimpse of it this weekend. Thankfully those 1880s socialist union organizers decided Labor Day was a good idea for the nation -- and we'll be back on Monday to celebrate the founding of this holiday in its home town of NYC.

We hope that all the wonderful people we saw along the way and the warm embraces we recieved from family and friends will sustain us as we move forward. At least that is my hope.

I seem to have a hard time composing these entries without the help of a visual aid to spur my thoughts. Usually writing comes in the morning, when I have just woken up (as it is today), and my dreams are the first thing that come to mind. Dreams don't seem to be an appropriate conversation starter on a blog; neither does my to do list. So I attempt to go back or go forward, anyplace that conjures a moment where life seemes a tiny bit simpler than now -- a Sunday of work piled up, cool overcast summer skies and crickets chirping steadily outside the window, like drops of rain. The power of nostalgia makes the past become enhanced by a glow, like a hazy circle around a setting sun, that often is more evocative than the simpicity of the present moment. Thankfully though, conjuring in all its forms does make us aware of the senses. Writing these sentences has already made my morning more pleasant than it would have been without this post. Meta-conversatioin here, folks.

So this photo brings me back to a long, long day of driving -- 12 hours or so -- from Brunswick, Maine to Ithaca, New York. With little money and little food Jess and I set out from Maine only to become lost on a backroad detour. Maine cowpaths are even worse than Boston. From there we traveled through the pick-up truck encrusted byways of Southeastern New Hampshire, the land of the weekend family vacation. Stopping at a Wendy's for lunch, Jess and I scarfed down the meatful or meatless food (depending on our personal piccadilies that noon) served with a side of condiments. Then onto I-91 through the southern tip of Vermont to Massachusetts, the Turnpike and the Taconic Parkway. By the time we exited the Taconic we were ready for home, but sadly we still had about four more hours to go, much of which we took through the two-lane highways of the Hudson Valley, crossing the Hudson at its more riverlike width at its namesake Hudson, New York. At one point we climbed up a mountain in the Catskills where I thought I was going to fly off the highway out into the sky (unfortunately I was driving). We weaved our way through small valley towns where the cemeteries were bigger than the Main streets and citizens seemed to hide behind checkered gingham curtains in their old 1930's dilapidated homes. Little inhabitants could be found besides a lone 12-year old boy slowly riding a BMX bike down the wrong side of the road. It was amazing to me that these communities survive and are part of the state of New York, a state where 500 miles away you still find roadsigns pointing to New York City and state-line posters boasting of the Statue of Liberty near the far west Pennsylvania border. It was an exhausting, strange day, but a day that was off the highway, and hence more memorable than many.

Pathway's End

After speaking with our friendly neighbor on our last day camping I learned of a beaver pond accessible from our campsite. The name of our site, Sunny Landing, perplexed us for days as we could not untease the use of the term "landing" for a site completely untouched by water. But the discovery of the beaver pond cleared the way for a logical etymology of our place in the woods.

Walking through the small meadow adjacent to our tent site, where the sun filtered through young-growth trees to offer warmth on the cooler mountain days, I trampled on over to the path now over grown in the far corner. Following the pathway, now becoming less covered with high grass and discarded tree branches to reveal the sandy bottom underneath, I made my way to what I thought to a clearing at its end. Slowly, the sound of multiple bullfrogs began to reach my ears and then, I arrived at my destination, a magnificently large beaver pond, half marsh and half freshwater. Once stately trees broke up the stillness of the pond surface, now drowned to become lonely yet still majestic stumps.

Up until this point the only beavers I had come across were in our own "beaver pond" known as Paradise Pond at Smith College. Beavers have always been a favorite animal of mine, no pun intended, perhaps starting in the zoo scene in Lady and the Tramp. In any event, no beavers were to be had at my morning visit that day in July, but the stillness and discovery still registered a warmth that I look forward to finding again on our journeys. Walking down a path in the woods, to its end, and discovering where it leads, albeit Frost-ean, is an extraordinary happening.

Forest Roads

After 3 hours of searching out the most comfortable and beautiful campsite possible, J and I came across a small dispersed campsite near Ripton, VT at the deadend of a tree-covered forest road. Forest roads are different from regular dirt roads in a couple ways: first off, they are less driven upon and often serve as pedestrian trails more often then vehicle runways; secondly they are hard to traverse by car, with large gaping holes in the dirt floor and steep shoulders down to rock encrusted rivers and creeks; thirdly they are hence the antithesis of anonymous, if you see a being on the road, whether human or animal, eye-contact most certainly is made and hands waved.

As our little slice of a forest road was on the side of a mountain (think our childhood fantasy My Side of the Mountain) clouds rolled by, both rain-bearing and innocent, often close enough to reach out and touch. The road was also the scene of evening walks after dinner to explore the woods together, afternoon drives up steep pathways, and morning expeditions to photograph and lose myself.

One of these mornings, our last morning camping, I met Nola, our neighbor, who we had seen other mornings walking her dogs with friends. She walked like an older farmer, perhaps from years of cross country runs, and had a warm smile with a melancholy tint. She told me of the changes seen in the forest over the years she has lived there, and explained of her feeling of the world pushing in on their little corner of wilderness. Escaping the tri-state area 20 or so years ago, she came to Vermont to find a simpler life and perhaps became, according to my own semi-touristic perspective, a steward of the forest life-ways. Fighting rifle ranges, logging, and the tossing of Budweiser cans, she doggedly keeps on with the important work one person can do to protect the small environmental oases we are lucky enough to visit. Shaking my hand, she invited us back and thanked us for being the kind of campers so welcome in the neighborhood. The friendliness of a stranger on the road put me on a natural high for hours.

You can easily get lost in the forest, each road looking a bit the same. J and I couldn't find our campsite our first morning there, after returning with supplies from town. But perhaps that isn't such a bad thing after all. For being off the map, you can trace your own swath of land and open your thoughts to creativity and purpose, free from the markings of media and "the grid."

Freedom

So we're off on our road trip, or what is a cheap escape from the city. Went from 90 degree heat on cement to 68 degree coolness and fresh air in the Pioneer Valley. Felt like coming home, but with no responsibility, to be here in Northampton. Isn't that what we all crave once we reach 25 -- freedom from responsibility? That word can really weigh on our shoulders, even if we may be childless and officially done with graduate school duties for atleast a month.

J and I are finally relaxed and I think ready to revise the daily duties of worry and guilt into something more flexible, light, and tender. The happiness of a cloudy day in Massachusetts with no appointments or reasons to rush is upon us. Thank the lord! It is truly amazing how one place can invoke something so different from another, illuminating different energies, casting hope or fear in one fell swoop without a change of weather. Going over the GW Bridge into New Jersey is a move against the national itinerary - and it feels so damn good -- even if you are entering New Jersey! :)

We're on to Vermont and the Green Mountain National Forest. Here's a preview of what is to come, from our experiences on our earlier trip home to Michigan. Let's hope the rain clouds stay in the past and the Americana keeps on coming.