went to great barrington in the berkshires for the last week with sb and her family (mother, father, sister, brother in law, niece and nephew – whew). was amazing. i love small towns – i love being able to walk everywhere, having the edge of town available on foot, having there actually be an edge, being able to go running in the quiet just after dusk and only hear crickets and see bats, visiting farms, old-school libraries where its open and pleasant and not reacting to a seige of homeless and/or unattended juveniles, unbitter bicyclists…. ny has some of those things, but not quite in the same way. i can go on a morning hike here, but it takes more planning, and its never really quiet – i can see bats, but they aren’t as enchanting at the edge of a parking lot.
its nice to be a bit farther north too – to see pine trees, and spruce, and have mornings where the night’s cool damp steams off the grass and makes mist, where the clouds get caught in the edges of the hills, where it doesn’t hit a humid 80 degrees by 930 in the morning.
and nice to hang out with sb’s family – they’re charming people. a little bit nervous and shy on my end, but definitely helped along by the presence of a four-year old – nice to be within a spectrum of ages, and nice to see sb in context.
sb took pictures, so when she shares i will ( i have yet to find a battery for the lovely camera l + d left when they came to visit – yay! visitors! yay! camera!) – there’s at least one good one of misty morning, and of a tiny frog the size of my pinkie fingernail, and of noah and sb and me making blueberry pancakes.
and now i’m back in the big city. newly affirmed that this is not my final destination, but still pretty ok with being here. had a 630am meeting the morning after i got back, which was a bit of a challenge, but all in all a good way to step back into the melee.
and now its the weekend! everyone should take vacations from wed to wed – really, it is a splendid thing to have your vacation sandwiched between two two-day weeks…
