A new years run into town

Its been a quiet New Years Day unique in that there is not prep like Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are things to do if you choose and I expect in the more urban part there is much more activity, but here it is pretty dull, which for a couple days a year is ok.

I am trying to start the year off well and went out for a 4 mile run this afternoon with camera in hand. I haven't been able to keep up a good running schedule with the weather and work schedules, so today was a run/walk/photo version. Better than nothing.

Today I decided to run into the center of town. We live a few miles out from the center of Lenox, which is a small town of about 5,000. The downtown is a combination of residential and several inns and shops and the library and town hall and most of the shops are really geared more to the tourists than us local.




On the way into town, the back way as I think of it, because it is mostly small houses and not the route through the historic district. But there is this neat house with a barn tucked away through the trees.



Though out of sequence of my run, this part of town is tree lined and in the historic district with older houses and the manses though upscale are tasteful. As with many roads like this, it doesn't take much distance before the houses thin out and you are deeper in the woods.



Around the town hall, as with most of down town there is not much going on. Traffic is very light and only a few people out walking around. Tourist season is definitely over and most of the folks visiting are in from the cities for respite with an occasional smattering of locals like me.



Circling around on Main Street, the shops and library (brick building with the cupola). The library use to be the county court house when the town was the county seat many years ago. That designation moved to the city of Pittsfield to the north.



As I have mentioned, there are several inns in town. Converted estates from the gilded age or large farmhouses converted and expanded. This one across from the Church on the Hill, is allegedly haunted by a ghost. I stayed there for the night many years back before we moved here and never met this resident. Given I was here for a job interview, that probably was okay.



The church sits high on a hill overlooking the town center and as most old white churches in New England was the center of much activity in earlier days. Though a couple of miles away, I can hear the sound of the clock chimes on a quiet night.



I have mentioned many times that there are hills upon hills. The circular route into town and back is about 4 miles and on a day like today is pleasant. A good stretch of flat mixed with multiple grades of hill. In warmer weather I have run into town to grab bagels for the company and been back home while they are still warm.




and just a short distance out of the town center, across the main highway and nearer to home, the icy stream bubbles away under the road on its way to the river.

It's early morning, on a relative scale, as by this time I have usually been up for 3 hours or so, but slept in til 7 today. Whoo!

The last day of the year, a few more days of vacation. Its been a windy cold week. Not to hospitable for being outdoors and the snow on the road makes running a challenge.

I am not much for doing end of the year recaps and Debbie warned me about doing too much thinking on vacation after my shadow disappearing post.

The sun is gently coming up, the air is calm. A couple of rabbits and squirrels have been about in the yard. The house is quiet, the stove busily pumping out heat. The calm before the storm as we are hosting a New Years party for a group of teens tonight, so in a bit it will be time to finish up the lists and start the prep and ready the caffeine for a long night. ;-)

I may post again as I seek shelter from the din, but if not, wishing all who pass this way a peaceful and bountiful New Years, in more ways than just the material.

Its a snowy day in the Berkshires and the first real day of a week vacation. I don't really count the days up to Christmas and the traveling days afterward as vacation as they seem a blur.




Walking out the driveway for the paper this morn, with camera in hand, I turned and saw my shadow. I clicked a quick picture, which I think shows up but am not really sure, as immediately afterward the shadow disappeared.

I will say that the feeling of being there one moment and then not the next was a bit unsettling and it took me a few moments to put it together that a cloud had passed over the sun. [I allow myself to be a little on the slow side on vacation.]

But the thought, and that feeling, has stayed with me all day. You are here one moment and then you aren't.

Merry Christmas

It’s a quiet day in the Berkshires. A mild snow covering makes it a white Christmas without the burdens of a blizzard, which have happened on many a Christmas. It’s a little warmer than it has been in days, actually close to 30.

The tree is all decorated and by now the presents are all unwrapped and we are doing not much more than relaxing and doing family things. I went out for a short run in a late afternoon as a little gift to myself, very little activity and just "warm" enough that it was comfortable after the blood is pumping.




Around the neighborhood the Christmas lights are on. It is peaceful and a time to slow down. Perhaps that is what I have felt missing and some of what Christmas is about.







Merry Christmas to all.

It is officially cold in the Berkshires when the thermometer hit the teens as it has been this week and is this evening. As the east coast was battered with snow last weekend, we have the remnants of a few inches received a few days before, and a dusting today but nothing more. The wind has been blowing the past few days and, as I have written many times before, I love the sounds of the wind. But it does make it colder and the slightest space seems to be an entry for a draft.

The stove has been busy and going fairly constantly except for a short shutdown to clean out the ashes and clean the glass.

Its a few days before Christmas and something just doesn't feel right, isn't there. I find myself thinking of Christmases past; some with fondness and melancholy: the last Christmas with my mom and dad, Christmases when the kids were small and the warmth of our tight family, Christmas when I was a kid. Time smooths and softens the rough edges of memories and if we knew then what we do now......

Some times what you are looking for is right in front of you....if you stop long enough to look

This weekend was our annual Christmas tree hunt. I could not find the camera (a hazard of too many pockets and too many coats) but the photos would have been almost identical to last year, less one in our hunting party :(.

We went to the same tree farm as last year in Great Barrington, with its several acres of green on white.

http://www.seekonktreefarm.com/

It was cold but the farm and its tiny parking lot were very busy. Our specifications are not that unusual other than the size, which needs to be big enough to not get lost in a room with a 10 ft ceiling. Sometimes the size is a problem and we end up looking and looking and looking; wandering up and down the hill, through the snow, trying to remember where we've already looked and keeping track of where everyone is.

But not this year. We stopped in the hut to say hello, confirm the choices and prices and pick up our saw and were heading out to the trails when my youngest, who is just a little up ahead, comes back and says, "I've found the tree". Yeah, sure...3 minutes out and the tree has been found? What is wrong with it?
But there it was about 20 feet from the hut; tall, and full.

We stop and looked.....and looked. Is this a tree you can cut? It seemed to obvious and too good. Why had no one else cut it. But it was.

How many people have walked right by this tree today and never noticed it? We walked by it last year and never noticed it. We never really started "seeing" the trees until we were on the main trail.

So in about 10 minutes the tree was cut, and we dragged it back the 20 feet to the shaker (to get those tenant mice out) and we were done. Start to finish with it attached to the car was about 30 minutes.

So this got me thinking, if my youngest hadn't been observant and in the moment, would we too have walked right past this beautiful tree and had to cover the acres and perhaps not found a good tree? What else might I be missing that is right in front of me because I am thinking of something else or not ready to find the answer?

So the tree is up in time to avoid the second half of a snow storm, waiting to be decorating over the next week or so.

The face of homelessness

This morning I volunteered to be a reader at an elementary school down the street from my office. I'd run and walked past this large concrete 70's building many times but never been inside and the windows are shaded so that you can't see inside. I also read to my kids hundreds of nights when they were small but surprisingly I was a little nervous.

The book I was given to read was about a family loading up in the car and going to visit their extended family for several weeks.

As the volunteers gathered in the library waiting to be called to classes I read over the book to become comfortable with the book and the language, not thinking much about the context of what I was going to be reading to my 6 year old audience.

I could spend several paragraphs writing about the layout of the school and the class set up as it was so different from the small town schools and classes in Lenox and also where I grew up. This is city and a big school. But that is not really the point of this post.

Led to the "pod", as they call their classes, the teacher announced that I was here to read and would be in the library corner and kids could come over if the wanted to. I was offered a chair, but since the kids were on the floor that seemed fine with me. As I looked around the half dozen or so kids that had gathered I was struck by how different they looked from the very white rural families in the book and as I read along I would ask them questions about their families and going to visit. Then we got to a page where there were a dozen people gathered in the house, easting and chatting and I asked if the kids had gatherings like this with there families. Very matter of fact one little girl answered "I live in a motel room". The discussion continued as did my reading but my mind stopped right there. This bright chattering child was homeless and living in a motel room with her family.

Homelessness is often faceless and very removed and while I have met several homeless folks when volunteering at a meal program, hearing this from a child took be aback.

For all my worries about what I don't have or wish I could provide my children, this was a dope-slap reality check.

First Snow

While we have had several bouts of snow furies and white coverings on the lawn in the morning this is really the first decent snow and the first snow of the season is often the loveliest, at least on the morning after. When it started yesterday and I was driving up back country roads in the higher elevations, my expressions were not so poetic.



On a morning after when the sun is bright, the fluffy clumps of snow are still sticking to the branches.



The sun has not yet warmed to knock of the snow and the breeze is mild. The moon is visible in the bright blue sky.



Winter is beginning and this is a way of easing us in. The heavier snows will come and with it the sloveling and clearing and driving in the mess. But for now I'll appreciate the beauty of the first big snow.

Very often when I go out for a run I will see something and say to myself that I should be bringing my camera along. I did this a bit when I first started this blog but then just scheduling a run became a challenge, let alone making sure the camera was charged, and it can get difficult juggling everything. I also take different routes and depending on how much time I have. I may do a couple miles or up to eight miles depending on the time and how I am feeling and carrying anything eight miles is a pain, especially if the memory is full or the battery dies.

But today I had some time, not much, but enough for a 3 mile loop and the camera was charged and the sun was still early in the sky.



I have often described how I live on a hill, not a steep one, but a hill still the same and it is approached only by other hills. This is the downhill as I leave our street. Traffic is dead, the air is clear and its warm enough for shorts and a tee and I am on my way. I am sometimes puffing as I climb my street then turn the corner and can rest a bit on this incline.



The flatter road runs past the middle and high school with it rack of sculls waiting for the return of warmer weather. As schools go this is a smaller one, but then Lenox is a small town and this is relatively new. At this point I've hit a quarter mile and come to the soccer fields. Football is not a Lenox sport, soccer is and there are 3 fields which I sometimes will venture out on and do a few laps around to add distance and there is a neat little drainage pond where I spot frogs and once even a crane.



I've passed this apple tree at all of its seasons. By now the leaves are gone and apples have mostly fallen waiting for some creature to retrieve or become compost under the coming snow.



Along this route there is a lot of water draining and always going somewhere. Behind several houses and deeper in the woods there is this wetland swamp with many dead trees in the middle and surrounding it, but still teeming with life.



Coming up on a clearing, at least on one side of the road, is the ever present ridge line that I have captured and written about many times. This shot is looking back and more to the northeast as the sun is to low and bright for a forward shot.



If you are driving this road there are many things you can miss. This stream flows under the road and on either side it bubbles along and here it gets closer to its end in the river bellow. The absence of leaves gives the depth of the surroundings and it looks so different when cloaked in thick green leaves and brush.




By now I have reached the halfway point, the intersection of 3 roads that aren't really interesting enough to grant blog space for. The golf course on one side is a golf course like so many others with the only unique thing (to me, of course) is the tall grasses on the edge.





Something I have learned is to be alert and always be looking around. Besides being aware of coming cars, a slight trickle sound is enough to lead me through trees to find a beautiful stream or looking up to find this solitary nest high above the street.




or noticing the detail and beauty of what can be seen in the woods when the leaves are gone.



or this mysterious toilet that has just sits there in the woods surrounded by water at the side of the road. Now and in the spring you can see it, but in the summer the leaves are thick and it is totally hidden from view.



or the crow that just landed in the branch above me...... there is always so much to take in.





I rarely take shots of houses and post them here as I don't like to intrude and often they are not that interesting. But I pass this rambling farmhouse every day, sitting back from the road with a carriage house and barn and wooden bird cage on the porch and rope swing and views of the pastures and the ridge below. Its been on the market for over a year now so if you know anyone interested I'll tell you exactly where it is.




With this I am close to returning to home. The camera is filled up so there is nothing much more to show. I approach the hill that I started this post out with only this time looking up. My goal is usually to make it 3/4 of the way up without walking but today I only make it halfway. Its steeper than it looks from that shot.
At the top of the hill I can catch a glimpse of Mt Greylock, one of the highest points in the state and probably 40 miles away. I have yet to be able to capture the beauty of how it looks from here so I'll just tell you about it and when I do, I guarantee it will be here.

So as I top the hill I round the corner and can now cool down on the hill that approaches home. Feeling good but tired and ready for another run tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who wander to these parts. I am thankful for your presence.

Today is a day to put aside the worries and concerns about what isn't and what we don't have and focus on what is good and what we do have, which is substantial. I guess it is what I would call a celebration of the half full glass versus the half empty. A day to be optimistic and reflective.

I sit here looking out the window in the physically beautiful and peaceful location, with family around [sleeping as they may be], the sky is gray and, misty and it is quiet. [obviously the picture here is not from today] The clouds hang over the ridge line almost suspended from above and being carried to the south. If I listen intently I can hear the bells on the church across town counting off the hours. The air us still.

I'll go out for a run in a little bit, a chance to do something I am learning to love but am having difficulty fitting into the schedule. Then back for a slow day of feasting and resting and connecting. My glass is definitely more than half full and I and thankful.

Have you ever been bored when you have much to do?

Its sort of like having thinking you have nothing to wear when you have a closet and dresser full of clothes or like the comment "there is nothing to eat!" Well I am someone who can usually find something to wear and it is extremely rare that I can't make a more than decent meal with the what is ever around. So why do I get bored s easily when there is so much to do?

I guess like the comments about clothes and food, it really amounts to that I don't like the choices. Do I mop up the water that came in the basement in the downpour of the past few days? Do I venture out to wrestle with the water hose still connected to the house and put it away for the season? Do I clean out the pellet stove? Yeah I will eventually do them all and go to the library, store and post office and clean up around the house and make dinner and when I have I will feel better about checking them off my list but then at the end of the day will probably feel like I haven't done enough. Because what I won't have finished by Sunday will probably be paperwork or process related. Though I tackle that chore several times a week it just never gets smaller. So why is this?

I have come to the conclusion that because Monday through Friday is so programed, so filled scheduled and with things that get so drawn out and complicated that they don't get finished by week end and I work with many interruptions, that when I get to the weekend I feel like I've washed up on shore. About 3-4 hours after getting up on a Saturday I am ready for a nap but there is always too much to do to take time for a nap and finding the time .

There is a clear advantage to having work to do that you can finish and that when you are done you can see the results of your work. On weekends the last thing I want to pick up and work on is something that in the slightest way resembles weekday work. On a Sunday night the piles of paper will probably get whittled a bit but still be there unless there is something important.

So its now a Sunday night. On Friday night I resurrected this half finished post from the draft pile of about a year ago and played with it in my mind as I toiled away. Not really amazing that the same theme still holds true. And I can say that on this Sunday night I haven't yet picked up "projects that seem like M-F work" but my list that I started with is almost complete except for some errands.

So what was on my list this weekend for exciting stuff?
Finish installing a new toilet; pulling apart and breaking up the old one so that it is in manageable pieces to dispose; cleaned the pellet stove (a big clean versus the 5 minute sweep out; planned and made Sat & Sun dinners; packed up and put away the now unused aquarium [ we determined that one 1 inch fish does not need a 20 gallon tank]; sanding down and stripping wallpaper past off a bathroom wall [this is a drawn with first sheet rock dust everywhere and then the washing and washing off all the paste so paint will adhere [I hate this but the people who lived here before absolutely loved wallpaper and slathered it heavily with glue. Then of course there are the regular chores that come with weekend and the shuttling of teens to events.
Pretty ordinary stuff. But its done, or at least most of it is and none of it required me coordinating multiple people on a project, mediating or processing paper.

All in all a good weekend!

Someone has to come in last……..

A couple of weekends back I ran my second 10 k race, a local event benefiting lung cancer research, the Brocktrot. www.brocktrot.org
For those non-runners a 10k is 6.2 miles. The Brocktrot is a tough course because of its considerable amount of up hills and down hills, though in the Berkshires there are a lot of these. You might think the down hills are a breeze only you have to put your effort into not going to fast and pushing back against inertia. At least I do.

I hadn’t trained as much this year I had last year. A tighter work schedule and loosing good start up time in the spring following a heel injury put me behind where I was last year. But I’d done the race last year, had done a few flat land runs that were close to six miles and I am not beyond walking short distance when I am wiped, so I knew I’d finish. The question was how well. My goal was to finish and to try to come in under an hour. A pathetic time for a younger or more experienced runner but decent for someone like me.

The day of the race I didn’t think much about how I’d do. There are 200 people running on both sides of you, in front and in back and the road and hills are in front of you. It’s really hard for me to gauge how I am doing other than timing my pace at certain marks along the way. I seemed to be doing ok. Not great but ok.

Part of the race (a rare flat part) runs up the entrance road of Tanglewood, loops around a parking lot and then out another entrance and back on the road. It was at this loop that I could see a short distance behind me and "crap" I could see the ambulance. This follows the last person to the end [unless someone needs it] which means that I was close to the end of the pack. "Double crap". I have to at least come in a distance ahead of the freakin’ ambulance.

It was this moment that had me thinking about the topic of this post. There were people behind me, not many but still some, and someone was going to come in last.

In races of just about any kind someone is going to come in last. In some races it means you lose, such as an election or competition where you are a serious contender and there are times when you just put yourself out there to compete against others but also against yourself.

It’s easy to be philosophical about the last one over the line when it isn’t you and our culture doesn't always do well with the people who do not win. Yet more likely it is the person who comes in last, at least in a race like this, is someone like me who somewhat suspects they will be at the back of the pack but still goes out there for the experience, as a test against your own endurance, own tenacity and for the fun of the experience.

Why do we do that when we know the winners are so much faster than us and more skilled? For me it clearly a challenge of myself against the course and the clock; a marker of the work that I have done in training. There is little chance I will even see the runners who are 20 years younger than me who can finish the course in half the time or runners who have been at this for years and can practice every day. But it doesn't seem to matter. I think for those of us in the back of the pack it is the satisfaction of accomplishing something that we have had to push ourselves to do and that we did not give up when it was tough, when those up hills seemed to go on and on.

It makes me admire a little more everyone who puts themselves out there for a race, for a cause they believe in when the going is not smooth and easy or run for some election when you are getting trashed or hurting in the polls. It takes character to be willing to loose, to risk that potential embarrassment of coming in last by a wide distance. But it can also come with tremendous satisfaction of having tested yourself and finished. Maybe not first but well ahead of the many who were too afraid to even try.

So how’d I do? I finished and never even saw the ambulance again. A little over an hour, 176 out of 200 and I felt absolutely great and can’t wait until my next race.

There is a smell and sounds of the season. It is a rainy early fall day in the Berkshires.

Many leaves are off the trees so the sound of the rain is not muffled as it is in the summer but rather hard as it passes through the branches. The leaves that are still on the trees are no longer as sturdy and give way to the weight of the drops and bend or fall off.



The view has a definite grayness. Not foggy. The air is clear but the gray sky is so visible through the leafless trees that it changes the look completely. The smell of the rain on the leaves is woodsy and earthy.




As I walk in the yard in the morning, the rain is cool but not the refreshing feel of the summer rain. The feel of the rain and the leaves on my bare feet is odd. Wetter than rain on the grass, each leaf seems to be a dish collecting a puddle and some stick as I move.





I like the sounds and smells and feel of a rainy fall day, so different from the downpours of the summer or dampening quiet of snows. Each season is so unique and that is one of the many wonders.

At the end of this dead end road is the river. From the main road going by you'd never know this is here.

A quiet spot, except for the noise of the wind and at times when the water is high, the sound of the river. Across the bridge are railroad tracks and trails leading off into the woods.



Flower boxes flank the bridge, a nice wide bench on a ledge by the side to just sit and watch and be.

First Snow

It was actually snowing tonight!!! Fortunately just a dusting but good grief it is still only October. Some areas of New England could get a couple of inches or more this weekend. Luckily a ton and a half of pellets have been moved to the garage but I guess it is time to move the snow blower out. Groan!................

One of the reasons I like the Berkshires is the natural beauty that is so plentiful and so readily accessible. Of course given the primary topic of this blog, that statement is more than obvious.




These are pictures I took from the borders of our yard and the woods out back just wandering around for a few minutes. The air is so clear and the colors so bright.



A beautiful early fall day. The temperature in the mid 50 is cool enough for long sleeves yet the sun bright enough for sun glasses. The woods are thinning out as the nights are getting cooler. The leaves dropping from the bushes and trees open up views that have been hidden since late spring.



The sound of shots at dawn and dusk indicate that hunting season ( I don't know which) has begun making some of the woods off limits. A few bears have been spotted wandering down the street at night on their way back to the deeper woods of the forests. The night winds seem stronger, which usually is the case that these start thinning the trees out more and filling the yard with leaves. Not something I look forward to and one of the down sides of living near the woods. Though if I am fortunate, the strong winds will make my job a little easier and relocate some of the leaves to where I don't need to deal with them.

To me there is something very beautiful about a fog. Especially when, such as this, the sun is coming through in some parts and you can see the highlights of what is hidden.

This is Laurel Lake. I have posted pictures of it many times before as it is close to home and on the main north south road in the Berkshires. A favorite kayaking spot except for this summer as it has been closed off for boating due to an infestation of zebra mussels. The concern is that tiny baby mussels will adhere to any boat in the lake and will then contaminate the next body of water it visits.


These little mussels are also hidden from most as it much of the lake in this fog.


Today I had an experience that warmed my heart and lightened my soul. People can sometimes be amazing in their understanding and compassion and in being just genuinely good; all in a very understated and normal way. I have experienced this several times but today was the most recent and it makes me smile.

Joy and peace to all who visit here.

Understanding

As I continue to add days to this life I am more fully understanding that beyond taking care of the basics, a large part of our journey is "understanding":




understanding ourselves, understanding others, and being willing to continually revise that understanding throughout our lives as we learn and observe and discover....



and to be ok that this is a journey and to give ourselves permission to revise. A life is not totally written until it is over.