Category Archives: Catskills

Big, Black, Bright Stillness

October 19, 2015

City life has many things to offer and engaging with the cosmos isn’t one of them. Lately, I’ve been feeling about the night sky the way I felt about the sun when I lived in Seattle for three years—I miss it. I saw part of that lunar eclipse three weeks ago, which was amazing, yet on a night-to-night basis, I can count on one hand the number of stars I see from my backyard or from my front step. Neighborhood street lamps and that massive light bulb across the Hudson River known as Manhattan block out a substantial chunk of natural sky. New York City is America’s biggest city, something I feel acutely whenever I ride the subway, wait in line for a bagel, or try to enjoy anything remotely celestial. Look up from my backyard and you’ll see United Airlines crisscrossing with some transatlantic flight crisscrossing with some rich guy’s Cessna (we’re also near Teterboro Airport) crisscrossing with the occasional police helicopter. Sometimes, on a clear night, you’ll see a star or two, which, one of them you later learn turns out to be Venus. In the winter, I can usually spot Orion, but that seems to be the only visible constellation from my little corner. This weekend while driving around the Catskills, I stood under a black, cold sky punctuated by millions—no gazillions—of stars. I saw the Big Dipper for the first time in ages.

I’ve met people here who find the silence and vastness of rural landscapes and open sky overwhelming. They need the buzz of urban life to feel tethered. I increasingly prefer the country. If walking around the forest changes the brain (and I did that in the Catskills, too, and genuinely felt calmer afterward), my guess is stargazing at night also positively affects our synaptic energy. But under proper conditions, like what I enjoyed Saturday night. No planes. No helicopters. No anything trying to go anywhere. Just big, black, bright stillness.

Escaping the city for the something more pure is about as old as New York City itself. The word “vacation” is said to have been created here during the previous turn of the century because the rich regularly vacated the city for more pastoral backdrops, Theodore Roosevelt among them. I find myself craving starscapes, feeling pulled toward big open spaces so I can drink in that sense of awe that is the night sky. I’ve never been a very successful student of the sciences; I earned a C in my freshman astronomy class. When looking up, I have no idea what I’m looking at and I’m okay with that. I trust everything Neil DeGrasse Tyson says. I like the mystery of what’s above. Night skies are humbling, with a depth and complexity that surpasses mountains and oceans, perhaps because unlike mountains and oceans, the sky is untouchable. Simultaneously aloof and daring with a rhythm that we are a part of but where we have no say. The last time I witnessed a sky so pregnant with stars was when we were in Taos, New Mexico, a town that preserves much of the outdoorsy mysticism once in abundance in this country, and perhaps explains the alien lovefest that still thrives there. New Mexico is a place where people look up. New York City is a place where people look down, eyes glued on smartphones, away from each other.

Inside the Catskills farmhouse where we were staying, I thumbed through a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”. On the subject of stars, would it please Thoreau to know that on Amazon—an arbiter of the unnatural world—“Walden” averages 4.2 out of 5 stars, with more than 530 reviews? Even online, more stars is better. And would he be intrigued by the conversation happening in the reviews of “Walden” where people discuss the generation gap among those who appreciate Thoreau’s observations and ideals? I appear to be in the middle of this gap. Thoreau’s phrasing is thick—paragraphs go on for a page—and while I enjoy a long read and resent the current listicle-ADHD online reading culture, the pages were a commitment.

But I want to keep going and read more. Thoreau struggled with respiratory illness much of his adult life and wrote about the restorative powers of being outside. “I cannot preserve my health and spirits,” he said, “unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.”

Truth. Though who does four hours of anything anymore that doesn’t involve WiFi? I’ll be the first to admit I’m not very good at being outdoorsy. Camping is a lot of work. I don’t own gear. I hate bugs (I’m allergic to hornet and wasp stings). I can’t read a map. I don’t really care for trail mix.

But I do love being outside and grabbing what little pieces of it I can. Thoreau might find today’s ideals of communing with nature somewhat ridiculous. So much as been pushed out that great effort is made to create sanctuaries for what’s left, such as the one square inch of silence in Washington State’s Olympic National Park. Noise pollution is just as much of a problem as sky pollution (though the suburbs are quieter here, just not very dark). Who besides Zen monks and hunters spends hours of uninterrupted time surrounded by trees and silence? My last four-hour stint with Mother Earth was hanging out in a nest at a Big Sur glamping resort where I could walk uphill for sushi. Saturday night, I lasted less than 10 minutes just standing alone on the frosty grass watching the stars, no street lamps interrupting my view. Temperatures had dropped to the thirties, and while I wore a hat and warm coat, my body was still holding on to September.

Yet that ten minutes mattered. I felt my nerves disentangle a bit, my pulse settle, my thoughts slow down. Watching the whorls of stars, a wave of calm moved through me, something I hadn’t experienced since being out on the California coast last summer. The night sky made me feel small. And for that I was thankful.

Whales in the Mountains

May 18, 2015

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My first clue was this goofy-looking, very dated, blue-and-white parking sign showing a smiling whale with wheels. We were figuring out where we could legally park and my initial thought was “What the hell is there a whale sign doing in the Catskills???”

Goes to show what I know. Turns out Hudson, New York, was an old whaling town. And I call myself a New Yorker.

There are dozens of towns dotting the Hudson Valley, that fuzzy green space north of the Big Apple that has some of upstate New York’s rust beltness with a touch New Englandy pastoral independence. I’d never heard of Hudson, New York, until we wanted some custom-made furniture and after Googling “Hudson Valley cabinet makers” I found Jason, a tree-to-table artisan who maintains a shop called Fern Handcrafted on Warren Street in Hudson.

“What’s with the whale signs?” I asked him after drooling over all the beautiful stuff he makes from trees.

“This was an old whaling town,” he replied.

And I wondered, but didn’t want to say aloud, “Shouldn’t the Atlantic Ocean be involved?” Mystic, Connecticut, was an old whaling town. Nantucket was an old whaling town. But a riverside community a hundred miles from open ocean and just 30 miles from skiing? I had to know more.

Long before Brooklyn hipsters moved north and the farm-to-fork scene became a scene, Hudson was the first Hudson Valley whaling town in the late 18th century, later followed by Poughkeepsie and Newburgh, all towns that hug the Hudson River and now siphon commuters south by train to offices in Manhattan. In 1774, when the Continental Congress decided to break off trade with Britain, Britain retaliated by taking over the colonies’ primary seaports, New York and Boston. That choked off whaling, which was in full swing after someone off the coast of Nantucket harpooned a sperm whale in 1712 and realized the commercial potential of what he just did.

Fast forward to 1783; two Nantucket brothers—one being an experienced whaler—went property-shopping around the Northeast for a place to keep the whale business afloat, perhaps not confident that the Revolutionary War would actually end that same year after eight long years. The two men, with the stout New England names Seth and Thomas Jenkins, went upriver about 120 miles from Manhattan, and stopped at what was then called Claverack Landing, a farming town of about 150 people. What caught the Brothers Jenkins’ eyes were two bays deep enough to accommodate whaling ships. Two years later, the brothers literally drew out a planned city that could support the whaling industry, and renamed Claverack Landing, Hudson. By 1790, Hudson boasted a population of about 2,500.

Around this time, Boston and New York were beginning to recover from the Revolutionary War and ports hummed with merchant ships again. Hudson continued to contribute, dragging dead whales upriver that had bled out along the way, and processing them in the valley refineries for oil, blubber, meat and bones for corsets. Whaling remained a vibrant industry for those first few decades of the nineteenth century and then kerosene began to take over in the 1840s, which is about when the Hudson Valley whaling companies stopped sending out ships. So now there was a town, and no industry, a story that would hit upstate New York farm towns over and over again for decades to come.

Two hundred thirty years after taking its current name, what is the city of Hudson doing now? It has a population of just under 7,000, which was its population at around 1850 when whaling was sputtering out. But its population is now more urban refugees with a fair share of Brooklyn hipster transplants, including my furniture guy, who decided he needed more space to carve sixteen-foot conference tables that he ships off to places like Miami and Japan, not to mention an easier time sourcing the trees that make the furniture that appears in Elle Decor and The New York Times.

Guys like Jason restore my faith in small town America. And walking Hudson, I could see it. Outside, a thriving downtown lined with independent businesses, some painted a bright tangerine or a soft, buttery yellow or a deep hue of claret. Everything was old yet still full of purpose; one faded brick building in need of a paint job dated from 1805 and had served as a jail, a meeting house and a printing shop. Also outside: people not beeping at me to get the hell out of the way, which happens in suburban New Jersey, a vortex of patience and civility.

Inside these historic Hudson buildings, decorated tin ceilings, which were popular during the Victorian era, and countless shelves of fair trade goods or homemade goods or things designed to make you feel good, to reassure you that not everything was manufactured in China or assembled in the cheapest way possible. Hudson epitomized the shop local movement. There were tea shops, ice cream parlors, Jason, restaurants, books and tons of antiques—a word losing its shape. When I was a kid going on family vacations across New England, including Mystic, Conn., “antique” meant something fancy made in the 1800s; now it seems to mean anything not recently bought on Amazon. Hudson had several of these shops pushing “vintage” and “antique” wares, objects that too often looked like the same things your aunt wasn’t able to unload at a garage sale, such as a giant papier-mâché taxi. Yet even Hudson proprietors organized their junk in thoughtful, visually alluring ways, and Mike and I were both charmed.

We didn’t have time to walk down to the river front or explore further because we had to get back on the road, but we’ll be back to pick up our bathroom vanity from Jason, and, likely place another order with him. And maybe I’ll snap a photo of that whale sign that sparked it all, an item that truly looked like it came from an “antique” store. Our relationship with Hudson is just beginning.

But what does all this mean? Ok, so I learned that a rustic town with urban flair had a brief, but colorful past in the whaling industry that came to be because of the Revolutionary War. So what? Well, this day trip got me thinking again about America, because America is a strange place, really several mini-nations recognizing the same flag. Before our drive to Hudson, what it means to be an American when America was pretty new had weighed on me, because it seems very different than what it means to be American now. The Northeast feels completely different from Texas. The West Coast feels completely from the Midwest. And then there’s Hawaii and Alaska. Different is good. National identities should evolve with the times, but there’s an undercurrent of anger and narcissism that’s palpable across America that troubles me. Racism, rampant obesity and sedentary living, the have-and-have-not socioeconomic subcultures, constant legal challenges against Obamacare, chronic political bipolarity, incessant consumerism, an inflammatory American media allowing no room for more nuanced points of view or discussions because it just doesn’t make for good TV (CNN and FOX are equally guilty here). All have me thinking what it would be like to perch somewhere else for a while.

I’ve been reading up about the Revolutionary War lately, and it wasn’t a picnic then either—obviously racism, poverty, starvation. Infections we consider innocuous today, such as flu and strep, sent families to their graves. I also read that George Washington had dysentery so frequently that he sat on a pillow when on horseback, something that freaked out his subordinates because it heightened their leader when he sat on the saddle—and he was already a tall guy—making him an easier target for anyone armed who disagreed with him.

But was there this anger and narcissism I sense now? Ambiguity, yes. History books teach American kids that everyone grabbed the flag and told Britain where to stick it, but we all know it’s more complicated than that, that people struggled with their choices, that many felt terrified of losing Britain, that many questioned colonial leadership. Yet, that entrepreneurial American attitude persisted even when choices remained unclear. You don’t get on a boat and strike out for the unknown unless you have an entrepreneurial spirit; it’s in America’s DNA. This can-do attitude has weathered wars and economic setbacks, and was on full display in Hudson this past weekend. What got lost along the way over the centuries, I could not say, but walking Hudson and reading about the formation of this community, I discovered that the best of what it meant to be American flourished there and still does. All that promise, not just capital potential in whaling, but in developing an identity, influenced the greater good and influenced a community and a culture. It was there in Hudson and remains there, though as I roadtrip the United States more and more, I question whether it’s everywhere.

Seeking Enlightenment in the Berkshires

March 13, 2014

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To me, and perhaps to other New Yorkers, the Berkshires look like the Catskills; those same soft blue ripples of rock rising and falling to the north. Yet the Berkshires have a very different narrative than the Catskills. Today, the Catskills feature some of the Rust Belt deterioration that dominates so much of upstate New York, peppered with farms, ski resorts, struggling businesses and some of the hippie fervor that took root there decades ago and just kept growing. The Berkshires is more matronly, posh, stately, pastoral and charming like Vermont, more connected to New England with its white spire churches reaching toward the sky.

While the hippies were farming in the Catskills, across the border, the healing arts crowd were setting up camp and eventually gathered enough resources to hang up a shingle and offer yoga classes and workshops on positive energy. This place is called Kripalu and it’s located in the Berkshires in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The building was once a Jesuit seminary that sat vacant for over a decade, but you’d never know that by the full parking lot, the constant soundtrack of wheeled luggage, the buzz from the cafeteria and the heavy silences coming from the very full yoga and meditation classrooms.

Everyone comes to Kripalu seeking something. There’s a spa, dancing, yoga, meditation, music–almost anything that will help you achieve happiness and calm is offered at Kripalu. Unfortunately for me, this act of seeking kept me indoors the whole time, so I missed out on the beauty that is the Berkshires. This was my first time to the Berkshires and Kripalu, yet what I got over the weekend was just a sampler plate of what’s there. I signed up for a weekend meditation workshop with David Nichtern, who deftly uses humor to teach newbies who can’t sit still how to chill out. On a cold winter weekend, my meditation class was packed. There were men, women, young people, old people, psychologists, entrepreneurs, military wives, empty-nesters, people coping with chronic conditions and people coping with losing loved ones. We all sat on our cushions, eager to let go of what had brought us there.

Getaways at Kripalu tend to focus on interiors, *your* interior. It’s not a typical hotel getaway filled with distractions. Amenities at Kripalu are a little different; there may be beds, but this is a nonprofit institution that depends on donations, so while there is spa, this isn’t fancy-pants stuff. Weekend workshops include food, but when you hear the word “cafeteria” you brace for the worst. The exact opposite happened at Kripalu. The food was delicious and inspiring. I ate kitchari every day and looked up recipes on how I could cook it at home. I was a regular at the “Buddha Bar,” which was where the vegans hung out. There was a gluten-free bread basket area. I ate dahl and saag, butternut squash and quinoa, chick peas and kale. The tabletops offered pink Himalayan salt and the beverage counter offered organic white tea. There’s even a silent breakfast–you are required to enjoy breakfast in contemplative silence (I recommend it). Coffee addicts were out of luck; Kripalu’s cafeteria doesn’t serve coffee so the line at the small cafe across from the gift shop was always long in the morning. But I’m fine without coffee. I’d return to Kripalu just to eat.

And that’s what I think of when I think of the Berkshires; a serene winter weekend cocooned in a facility perched on a hilltop, where the views were amazing, the building felt like a mental institution, and the food was worth second helpings. Kripalu’s accommodations are very spartan so if you’re the type of traveler who requires a certain level of comfort and privacy, dorm-style vacationing may not be for you. I’m not even sure it’s for me. Sharing a bathroom with a hallway full of middle-aged women and a few twenty-somethings gave me recurrent flashbacks of college freshman dorm life. I’m fine without a TV in the room, but I prefer a private bathroom instead of the corner sink I had in my dorm-like room. Kripalu does offer more adorned rooms at higher prices, and next time, I might just pay a little extra to not have to remember my room key should I have to run to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

But I also need to go back to see the Berkshires, for all I experienced of the region either came from looking out the window while in meditation class at Kripalu or looking out the window during the drive there and back. I missed out on some fantastic hiking, pastoral New Englandness and town square boutique-y charm. There’s a writing workshop held at Blantyre in the Berkshires I might look into, but that event will likely also keep me indoors writing (and probably doing some yoga and meditation). I believe the Berkshires are more than a pretty view through a window, but it may be a while before I get to find out.

A Chocolate Cake Attempt Inspired by Travel

November 11, 2013

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Yesterday, I attempted vegan baking for the first time. It was an epic failure. It doesn’t look like a failure in this photo, but the cake was a sweetened brick smothered in rich, fabulously delicious avocado icing, a yummy way to enjoy antioxidants, fiber and unsaturated fat. So yes, the icing was a big success; the cake was not. However, just licking icing off a cake is what kids do at birthday parties; I’d like to think I’ve evolved beyond that, so the entire dessert got tossed into the garbage (that felt heartbreaking). I will try again so that both cake and frosting are edible…at the same time.

The recipe comes from Joy the Baker, who is a non-vegan Californian foodie willing to take chances with avocado. Only Californians get so creative with avocados. I mean, they make avocado cocktails, avocado beer, even avocado ice cream! Mention combining chocolate with avocado in my neck of the woods, and you get some raised eyebrows. Not surprising, given the East Coast caught on to the chocolate and bacon craze about a decade after we had been eating that on the West Coast. We’re uptight here in the Northeast, and not as trendy as we think we are.

I wanted to explore vegan eating because I have been inspired by our trips to the Woodstock Animal Farm Sanctuary in the Catskills north of the Hudson Valley. We’ve stayed and volunteered there three times now, and it’s been an enriching experience for the entire family. Shoveling poop can be a mentally calming activity. The more we head north to the Hudson Valley and Catskills, the more we learn it’s farm-to-table food country, a place filled with people who care about sustainable, clean, green living, as annoying as that string of buzzwords can be, and where there’s a level of playfulness toward what goes on the plate. The New York City dining scene takes itself way too seriously; a little further north, you can find equally innovative, fresh, organic cuisine without all the fuss. And you can eat out in jeans!

I can’t go upstate every weekend, so yesterday I tried to bring a little bit of bucolic upstate New York and cool California into my kitchen. I had never prepared anything like vegan chocolate avocado cake before (there’s also avocado in the cake batter holding things together), and doing so reminded me of trying wonderful new restaurants along the two coasts. A new restaurant on our horizon is Henry’s At the Farm, which is at Buttermilk Inn in Milton, New York, not far from the Woodstock Animal Farm Sanctuary. Henry’s specializes in local cuisine. In February, we’re spending a few days cleaning up peed-on hay at the animal sanctuary followed by a few days of pampering at Buttermilk Inn. I hope to come back to my kitchen with some confidence and new ideas. And yes, I’ll give the vegan chocolate avocado cake another go. That amazing icing deserves to sit on moist, decadent chocolate cake. Oh, and that butternut squash standing proudly behind the cake in my photo? That’s next on the chopping block; thankfully I already know how to make a tasty butternut squash soup.

Yes, I Like the East Coast, Especially Now

October 2, 2013

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For someone who is from the Northeastern United States, I frequently write about the American West Coast. Just last week, I wrote about Halloween costume shopping and funky drinks in Los Angeles, a city that is starting to become a second home. I feel more bicoastal, which is far more fun than feeling bipolar. For those who don’t know, I lived in Seattle for three years during the late 1990s dot-com rollercoaster ride, which was awesome and helped pull me out of debt. Next time there’s a dot-com rollercoaster, get on. We moved back east in the year 2000, around the time of the dot-com bubble and, since then, fly back west almost every year for something. In December, we fly to Phoenix.

Yet, when it comes to the month of October, southern California or the American Southwest can’t compete with the Northeast. Every fall, the Northeast becomes a cornucopia of color. Early October to Thanksgiving is my favorite time of year here, and despite all my kvetching about New York City traffic and attitude, I still push my way on to Central Park West to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade live among the throngs of people. I don’t need to be there; I want to be there. I still squee during the parade (last year I saw Whoopie Goldberg!) despite having gone several times (I don’t go if it rains…I’m not a hero).

Thanksgiving here is just the after-party to nearly two months of autumnal celebration. During the next seven weeks, there’s plenty to explore in the Northeast. Drive through the Adirondacks. Go to Vermont because everything in Vermont is fantastic, food, landscape, people, all of it. Hike around the Catskills. Have a romantic fall weekend in the Berkshires. Bike around Lake Champlain. Sip cider at a fall festival in New Hampshire (the Keene, NH, Pumpkin Festival made Fodor’s top fall festival lists!). Pick apples. Press apples. Bake apples. Eat apples. We’ve got apples. Lug a pumpkin from a farm in upstate New York. Learn about witches in Salem, Massachusetts. Enjoy the coast of Maine to yourself now that all the August vacationers are gone. Hell, spend the whole month of October in the Northeast. It’s worth it.

There are twenty-nine days left in October and I’m going to revel in every one of them. Already, in our little ‘burb, Halloween decorations are out, and red and orange leaves line the curb. Next weekend, we’ll follow Ichabod Crane’s steps through Westchester County for the Blaze, a truly remarkable demonstration of what you can do–and should be doing–with any squash or gourds lying about the house. Forget carving a simple crooked smile into a pumpkin this year. Get inspired! Aim higher! Just be careful using sharp objects and stay out of the emergency room. This is our second visit to the Blaze. Last year’s trip was amazing, especially given that Hurricane Sandy interrupted the exhibit and volunteers had to rush five thousand pumpkins to safety. But don’t let last year’s storm deter you. The 2013 outlook for fall in the Northeast is a calm one, so come visit. Warm cider and fresh-baked pie waits.