Stockbridge

Layers of hills from the Tanglewood Lawn

It's  always a jolly feeling heading west to the Berkshires. The delight of the Mass Pike going from 3 lanes to 2 and all the cars veering off for NYC, then green, green, green. At the other end, before the descent to what us old timers still call Exit 2, layers and layers of hills that exude the magic and serenity of which I can't wait to be part. 

A welcome from my dear, now retired ex-boss and her husband, who looked after me for a few nights in their highly air-conditioned place sitting up above the Stockbridge Bowl. Always interesting conversations and delicious things to eat.

Lenox Coffee Life 

I like to start my morning at Lenox Coffee, a good one for both its robust blend and the pantomimes that play out. I set up at  a dark green metal table outside, under an umbrella, laying down a thick brown ceramic cup of cappuccino and the most recent Business West, allowing me to get up to speed on local businesses and the owners behind them. I had just finished learning about the town of Monson's economic development plans when an unshaven man who didn't have to tell me he was from New York, sat down at the adjoining table with his dog Baxter, promising not to bother me which I was confident meant otherwise.

He was at first diverted by Jeannie, the barista, who came out with a biscotti that a small squirrel had clearly been waiting for, feeding it out of her hand and putting the rest, which disappeared in minutes, on a newel post nearby. When Keith heard I had been in HR, he began a long, involved and emotional complaint session about the six companies that, with no heart, had all fired him. After 20 minutes or so, I did my best to pivot the conversation by asking him how he'd ended up in the Berkshires, to which he replied what he thought was logically that his wife, who lives in NYC, comes for spa days at Canyon Ranch. OK. When he had exhausted himself, he toddled off with the long-suffering, snack awaiting Baxter, leaving me blissfully ignorant that the same seating plan would repeat the following morning. I suppose his parting comment to Jeannie, "see you at 11" should have been a warning.

On Monday, as he took his same seat at the adjoining table, he promised not to bother me. I smiled and said I was happy to talk. He looked down at his phone, dialed a number, put it on speaker and began talking loudly about a board meeting he was going to be attending. At first I plugged my ears, how else would I be able to read about Bonnie Raitt's influence on Tanglewood? He seemed to only get louder, so I moved to the furthest table. Two minutes later, another scruffy man with a New York accent and a dog sat down next to me, phoned Amazon and put  his phone on speaker while being on hold. Of course the two were friends. I decided to sneak out the back way and Keith saw me, yelling "I told you I was going to bother you!" with a smile, to which I lied "No bother at all"

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Stockbridge Bowl from the town beach

​But I had been getting itchy to go and visit my wedding rings. Monument Mountain has a special place in my heart. First introduced by an ex in the early nineties, I used it as my gym during the Tanglewood. years, going up the steep route 4 or 5 times a week after work, always trying to improve my time. From the top, there's a view East/Northeast of Monument Mountain High School, the Appalachian Trail ridge line and on clear days, Mount Greylock. When sitting on the rocks and facing East/Southeast, you can see Taft Farms in the valley, the edge of Great Barrington, Catamount and its ski slopes, Berkshire hills and sometimes, the Adirondacks behind them.  There are pitch pines up there and black flies that seem menacing but aren't, and a feeling that it's all going to be OK. Once, when I was in the process of breaking up with my first husband but not quite ready to tell the world, a branch got stuck in my wedding ring, pulling my finger out of joint, which I took as a not so gentle suggestion. So, I had a little ceremony at the top of the mountain and tossed it off, only to repeat the same thing again a few years back. On this time up, the ascent again is steeper than it had been, bathed in shafts of light that sometimes illuminated single or groups of mountain laurel blooming.

On the way up, I had met a white haired woman about my age, with a small and fairly infirm dog, both climbing slowly enough that I wasn't sure which way they were going. On the way down, there they were again, and when her dog showed an interest in me, the woman and I began chatting. She was from Pittsfield and had always meant to hike Monument, had passed it a million times, and was finally doing it, thinking it a good day as our country had just gone to war. Her husband, God Rest His Soul, had been Indian and so proud to become American. How sad he would be were he to know where our country was now. She began to get emotional and apologized. I told her I appreciated her emotion as I had been married and divorced twice, actually dumping my wedding rings at the peak, clearly not meant for married life, and was touched to witness a woman who cared so much for her husband. She gesticulated no with her head and said that she too had been divorced, and was upset not about him, but the state of the world. We laughed. I thanked her for the nice moment with a stranger, she did the same, and then she said "Oh, by the way, I found the rings", winked and went off in search of her dog.  When I think of the magic of the Berkshires, it's things like this that always happen and I'm ever so grateful. 

Speaking of dogs, when Nat was little, she loved to change her clothes many times a day, sometimes wearing multiple layers at once. Going over to a friend's house, the first thing she'd do was open up their dresser drawers and take things out that she intended to wear. So it wasn't a surprise that one of her favorite books was No Dogs Here, which tells the story of Norman, Ginger and Rufus, three dogs who get sick of all the NO DOGS ALLOWED signs holding them back, so decide to dress up in human clothes. There's a line in the book "It was hotter than a parked car with the windows rolled up", which kept on popping into my mind those days out in the Berkshires, so swimming was called for.

Mathayu and me, sweating it out at the Stockbridge Bowl

​One of the most important people I met Tanglewood was at the time this kid, Matt, who had barely graduated from college, and ended up moving to Boston and getting a job at Symphony Hall. We became fast friends, doing funny and creative things together, all spurred by his Todd Oldham-like way of engaging with the world. There was the Christmas Tree topper he made out Wonder Bread, cardboard and aluminum foil and my favorite, the dining room lampshade made out of hangers, vellum, wire and melted pieces of soda bottles. The man is a genius and brings fun and a delightfully refreshing outlook to life. We hadn't seen each other in about fifteen years, but began where we left off, sitting in Adirondack chairs at the lake, eating his cut up pineapple and laughing about our youthful indiscretions. In order to explain the color and light of Aix, I showed him a photograph on my phone and he did some swiping, remarking that we take the same photos, which was not a surprise, really.  Definitely a brother in another life.

I wandered to hidden places and when I found this hedge alley, there were two kids getting high in a golf cart who should have been working. I winked and walked on.

New, pretty part of Tanglewood

​It seemed important to take a wee gander across the lawns of Tanglewood, as it was an early weekday morning, the shadows were good and there wouldn't be a soul there. Some changes, not many, and such amazement that I had the privilege of working there, trying to imagine how I, or anyone, could ever have been stressed out.

On the last night, Marion and I curled up on the couch, had such a wide-ranging, all enveloping conversation that we didn't realize we were sitting in the dark for a very long time.  Are there better things than these?

Can't wait to go back to these enchanted people and hills, yes, including Keith. And Baxter.