Case Study: Virginia Creeper Trail

One of 47 bridges and trestles on the Creeper Trail.

The Monticello Connectivity Practicum team studied a number of regional trail projects to find out what works and what we can learn from them. This past weekend, I was able to visit one of the best of them and experience it first-hand. After reading hundreds of reports and gushing reviews I had high expectations for the Virginia Creeper Trail. It exceeded them.

The Creeper follows an old railroad right-of-way through the mountains and valleys of Southwest Virginia. Meredith and I rented bikes for the day and one-way shuttle service in Abingdon ($26 each) and rode the full 37 mostly-downhill miles back from White Top. It felt epic but attainable for someone who is active but not a cycling specialist. Shorter routes are available. The entire first half is a very easy ride and barely requires pedaling. As a result, we saw all body types, kids and seniors. The beauty is breath-taking and I was thrilled to see so many people out enjoying it. Because most people ride the same direction, there was little conflict even on a peak-usage Saturday afternoon.

The right-of-way is a three-way partnership between the United States Forest Service, the Town of Damascus and the City of Abingdon. Much of the trail is on Forest Service land, but more than half of it is on private land, passing alongside (and through) villages, farms and woodlands. Trespass is not an issue: the trail design keeps you on it and there’s really no reason to leave except to patronize the businesses it passes.

DC deserves personhood status.

Detail, Yoko Ono's "Wish Tree for Washington DC" at the Hirshorm Museum and Sculpture Garden. Definitely feeling some love on this trip....

I just got back from a Fourth-of-July getaway weekend to Washington, DC—the place where I grew up and came of age. Meredith and I lived there during an unforgettable period—Marion Barry’s bitch-set-me-up heyday—and a pivotal time in our own small lives. Our first independent households, careers born, graduate school, married and identity frameworks forged. It will always be a special place and I love going back there but I was especially jazzed to notice something profound on this past trip: a new maturity, though I cannot say whose.

The DMV has arrived as a major metropolis, in ways that go beyond its enormous size. The Metro is still pretty clean but now it has buskers, rats, people selling crap—and a feeling of shared endeavor. There’s a lot going on around town, quite different from the easily exhausted scene in the eighties and nineties. It’s grown nicely and added many cool things—like the terrific Capital Bike Share, on which New York’s CitiBike is modeled. The infrastructure has improved and it’s even more pleasant to walk, run and ride about then it was before.

Even though much has been added through in-fill (enterprises ranging from garden shops to a baseball team), many of the institutions from back in the day are still there as well: stores, restaurants, bars, secret gardens, shortcuts through the woods, places to hear a guy play sax by the river.

By contrast, nearly all of my friends have moved on, which surprisingly does not bother me—it’s just the flow of life. It’s almost the opposite of New York where most people are still there, clinging to whatever branch or root they can find, while the landscape around them is blasted away by a flood of real estate money.

Meantime, DC has continued to grow and flourish, playing with new ideas and points of view. Being back this time felt like visiting a friend that has retained its main personality traits and is still very familiar and welcoming but has developed in the meantime, with new thoughts to share. The city had acquired personhood—or maybe I just noticed it.

I grew up a huge devotee of Italo Calvino, Armistead Maupin, Lawrence Durrell and writers who talk about cities as living, organic entities. But that didn’t really feel the case for my hometown. It was as if the abundant green space dispersed the energy too much for it to coalesce and ignite fusion, making it a pleasant place but not a real city.

The spark is definitely there now, but if Calvino taught me anything it’s the impossibility of knowing whether it’s the place that has changed or if the maturation I’ve noticed is my own.

Postscript:

I ran the concept by my friend long-time James, traveler, poet/philosopher Lawrence Durrell character. He just recently gave up his DC address but was back in town to work the Folklife Festival and couch surfing--much as I do for the Marathon. We watched the fireworks together on a rooftop with a partially obscured view, then went back to his friend's apartment and drank Virginia viognie and talked about the world. A typical evening. Anyway, when I texted my thesis to him, he responded:

I think DC is stuck in an adolescent purgatory and will never attain personhood. This is because it is a 4-year town. If we move the capital to St Louis,  DC will become Fred Sanford.

Well then.

40? I hear 40. Do I hear 100?

From the window of the Starlight Express. Interesting bending effect from the video grab of my iPhone camera. Reminds me of my own body.

I turned forty last month and suddenly I felt like I was a hundred. One week, I set a personal best at ten miles, two weeks later, a sub-par half-marathon; a week later I couldn’t run a step. My legs felt like gristly hamburger, my body all twisted up, something clearly not right. Running, walking, sitting--it all hurt. I was becoming an ice-bath and ibuprofen junkie and of course not sleeping well. Did Father Time run me down and hamstring me in my flight?

Time for a new approach, one focused on building from the core. A hilarious mix-up landed me accidentally in a yoga class and it seemed exactly right. Balance exercises, pilates, and form-based running drills—I’m taking a broad-front approach and I’m seeing results, but they’ve been slow in coming.

As I write this, I’m wrapping up a trip to New York. Schlepping my baggage around, sleeping on a couch, and being away from routine doesn’t seem like a good way to find balance and alignment. And last night I learned why they call it the City that Never Sleeps. After a fun evening at the Roller Derby, the lads and young ladies wanted to go out and celebrate but I had worked a race that morning so like a dutiful forty-year-old I opted for bed instead. “Long day.” As if in retribution for being so lame, I lay awake for four hours. Maybe I should have gone out.

Well when I woke up a few short hours later, I felt…terrific. I suppose it was a case of quality over quantity. I had a yogi brunch with Anki, a visit with Amelia A, and a stroll through the Lower East Side and saw some great art, feeling better and better throughout the day. By the time I reached the bus, I was doing overhead curls with my suitcase.

What’s gotten into me?

I actually think I got something out. I must have wrestled and bested it as I lay awake last night. It was like a persistent flu bug that lingers for so long that recovery comes as a shock. So this is what it feels like to be well!

If old age steals in like a thief in the night, so does wellness. Or maybe my aches don’t seem so bad compared to what those derby girls must be feeling right about now. Whatever the case, I’m glad to have my body back.

Thanks as always to those who take care of me!

Richmond Rocks

Who says art is not affordable? It's good to see Richmond's tobacco infrastructure being repurposed for the arts.

I hadn’t really explored Richmond very much but my recent trip was a good introduction to the art scene there. There are some cool places

The main thing I realized is that it is a legitimate mid-sized city with all the cultural possibilities and interactions that status brings. Charlottesville, by contrast, is a small city—one that overachieves in a big way—but small nevertheless.

The biggest eye-opener was the Visual Arts Center—a gorgeous facility (better than any university I’ve seen) dedicated to community service through art instruction. It was abuzz with activity—in this case youth getting off the street and into the arts. It’s quite different from McGuffey that’s more about small but intense conversations.

Richmond boasts several first-rate galleries and refreshingly friendly compared to New York. The city is still small enough that everyone seems invested in growing the pie rather than dividing it up. There seems to be limitless studio space--much of it concentrated in the riotous Plant Zero | ArtWorks complex. The former was cool and the latter gave me artigo and made me appreciate McGuffey's curatorial filter.

There is plenty of funk—thrift shops, cafes, bookstores, quirky architecture—everything you would want. I was thinking about it on the drive home but I love where I am. You gotta love places (and people) for what they are and Charlottesville works for me.

It’s cool to know about this other interesting place down the road.

Fair Enough

This view shows one quarter of one of the two dozen art fairs. Granted, it's the largest but that's still a lot of art!

The circus of art fairs that happens every year in Miami can be daunting on many different levels. It’s visually overwhelming to visit a thousand or so galleries in a weekend. The schlepping is almost as taxing physically. Perhaps the hardest part for an artist, however, is the in-your-face assertion of social hierarchy and market-making. It can feel like a punch below the belt.

Because there is no objective way to measure the worth of a work of art, the market is largely built through social jockeying that established hierarchies within each Art World constituency—galleries, artists, and collectors. Position is power and while there is much that is wonderful about such a vast assemblage of creative talent, this event is a market foremost and ugly emotions such as pride and envy are not necessarily discouraged.

I went to Miami to see and be inspired by amazing art, to catch up with friends I see less frequently since moving to Virginia, and—let’s be honest here—to advance my own position within the hierarchy. How does one do that without feeling inferior or without behaving crassly?

These are standard concerns within any marketplace, but with a pretty big dose of salt for an artist since I am my business. There can be no firewall between my soul and that which I produce and sell. A least that’s how I feel. So I wanted to do well but also to stay upbeat despite all this sausage being made around me and I wasn’t sure how I would do it.

In truth though, it’s really just a decision toward the kind of person I want to be: generous, serene, joyful, and the active application of those virtues in my every action. Thinking that way made the whole experience a lot more fun, and probably more successful too.

It’s the only way to live anyway and that’s how I approached it. And you know what? It was a good weekend.

Orange October

When I'm not swimming in a sea of orange jackets at the ING New York City Marathon, it's the abundant splendor of the autumn trees.

When I agreed to continue working the ING New York City Marathon after moving to Charlottesville, I had this fantasy that I would live an almost normal life at home, then parachute into New York at the last second to save the day. The opposite has been the case: for the last few weeks my focus has been much more on New York and my very demanding employment.

But Life continues unimpressed with workaday dramas and concerns. In fact my art career is undergoing a major growth spurt at the moment and I simply cannot lay it aside for a few weeks. Consequently, the past three days—my last shore leave before ten straight 10+ hour efforts at the Marathon—have been just this side of insanity. These days it feels like I air-drop back into my life to take care of things in a major hustle.

If you’re curious, here’s a bit of my agenda during this Virginia trip:

Thursday
Arrive home from New York at 1:00 am. Sleep a few hours.
Laundry, breakfast, take Sebastian to school
Go running through the stunning golden forest on Carter’s Mountain
Conference call for work
One hour of photography (Monticello Road) while autumn splendor lasts
Quick meeting at The Bridge PAI to discuss Monticello Road
Meeting at McGuffey to discuss First Night Virginia
Work emails
Clean studio, water dying plants, etc
Pick Sebastian up from school, playground for an hour
Conference call
Make dinner for family, Sebastian to bed. Early to bed myself

Friday
Up early to take a sculpture up to my gallery in DC (Aaron Gallery). Fortunately the drive was very smooth and in this season, it is incredibly beautiful.
But first about an hour and a half of Road Runners work
Book it back to Charlottesville in time to winterize my garden ahead of upcoming frost
Pick up Sebastian from School
Stand in half-mile line to see Obama. Thankfully Sebastian’s grandma got a good spot for us.
Obama!!!
Ham sandwich dinner then as early to bed as possible.

Saturday
Up REALLY early for sunrise time trial. Ran adequately well but with moderate expectations due to insufficient sleep and second-rate nutrition
Woke Sebastian, fed him and took him to the Farmers Market
Office hours at McGuffey while Sebastian played cars, boats, and pirates on the playmat we made. I fell asleep at my desk
Home for lunch, more laundry, various household chores
Pack for extended return to New York
Work emails
Finally that nap I apparently needed
Playground with Sebastian and a tightly contested basketball match
Make dinner for family and our visiting Aunt Virginia
Date with Meredith: premiere of Danger. Zombies. Run. Q&A and afterparty
Left early to get decent sleep

Sunday
Up early for 7:00 am train
Breakfast in dining car followed by blogging
Multiple meetings await this afternoon in New York

It’s enough to make my own head spin but you know what? It is invigorating and it feels good to be busy. Somehow, I’m managing to do the bread-and-butter part of my job, grow my art career (meetings with 3 separate galleries in 5 days—one more next week), make some art (lots of photos), keep up with my running (not improving but maintaining for this spell), do some fun things, and hang out with my family as much as possible.

That last part is the rub: during the rest of the year I’m very spoiled in that I have nearly unlimited time with Sebastian but the toll of being away from Sebastian so much is becoming very apparent to me. I don’t get to take him trick-or-treating and I never have. This weekend he stayed very, very close to me and has come into our bed every night, which is uncharacteristic. He was extremely attentive and hopped to my every request and instruction. He has always been a very easy child and a pleasure to be around but you can tell he’s insecure about losing me and that bothers me.

Fortunately, this craziness only lasts for a few weeks and I am in the home stretch. The rest of the year, I enjoy unusually much time with Sebastian and my family, am really present in the neighborhood, and a nearly unfettered studio practice.

This period is exhausting. And exhilarating. I enjoy it but I will be glad when it’s over.

California Dream

I love that the Golden Gate refers not to the bridge but to the passage between the golden hills.

Wow! I didn’t know that I needed a vacation but my little sneak-away weekend was a a dream.

I really love California and although I’m happy with where I live, it certainly is uplifting to step away from time to time and check out a new place and a new way of living. That’s just what I did: explore, observe and absorb.

I was there for three days and all I did was cruise around from place to place, neighborhood to neighborhood. On the first day I took a very long urban hike: five hours of walking, cafes, stores, shops, parks and plenty of urban landscape. The second day, I drove into Marin County and walked among the redwoods, and ran along the spectacular Headlands. The third day was both on foot and in the vehicle—culminating with a little drive south along the Coastal Highway.

Difficult to imagine three better day: no specific destination, all senses wide open and well fed. It was like fuel for my soul and now I’m back to the normal routine, but fresh and full of energy and ideas.

A Fabulous Double-Header

The wonderful weekend started on a very inspirational note: the Clark Elementary 4th graders. Photo: Meredith Cole

What a weekend of racing! Although it was all about running, this past weekend was a pretty good illustration of my wacky Citymouse/Countrymouse life.

Saturday morning was the Clark Super Achiever Buzz by Belmont, a 5K race that I co-directed. It’s an old-school informal people's race organized by the Clark Elementary PTO to benefit the school and to bring the community together.

It started at 8:00 am, with the Clark 4th Graders singing America the Beautiful. Nothing could have been sweeter: the tinkling piano that we wheeled out into the street, the little voices so soft that we brought the runners way up past the starting line to hear them, the big round of applause as they finished strong.

The race had about a hundred participants—serious runners, families with children, kids in strollers, and the mighty 4th grade Road Warriors, who had spent the night at a lock-in organized by the popular gym teacher Mr. Massie. We didn’t bother with race numbers or a timing system—index cards and tick sheets worked just fine.

It was fun but there was no time to relish success: by 11:00 am I was on a train to New York to work the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile, which took place Sunday morning.

Now in its 30th year, the Fifth Avenue Mile is one of the world’s greatest races. I can still remember watching it as a kid on Wide World of Sports: the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat…

The event takes all day with thousands of runners in about 20 age-based heats. It takes so long, in fact, that I was able to sleep in, jump into my 35-39 race, run a mile down Fifth Avenue, add 13 more miles along the Hudson and still get back in plenty of time to help manage the later heats.

The last races on the schedule were the Professionals—Olympians, National Champions, and World-Class athletes. We staged the race in a very spectator-friendly way so the crowds were thick and highly energized. The athletes didn’t disappoint: as is typically the case, both the women’s and the men’s races came down to furious sprint finishes, with great and gracious champions winning in fast (but not record) times.

Back to the office for a few hours of editing—I think it took me and our new assistant editor about five hours to process around 10,000 photos and get them on the web. The results were terrific: see some highlights here.

At day’s end, I staggered back to John’s house for what might have been the best part of the day: a nice little dinner party with him, Anki, and our friend Heather.

I slept great and woke the next morning ready to give the world a high-five.

Friends with Rockstars

Huge thanks to Anki, John, Wellington, Jen, Laura, Rachel, Pamela, Splinter, Amelia, Liz, and the other Amelia for hosting me recently.

There's no way I could handle the back and forth to and from New York without my amazing friends.

Not only would it be cold sleeping on the street but much more importantly, my mental state would not hold up well at all. It's not easy constantly saying goodbye to my family but these guys and ladies do alot to cushion the blow.

Their loving presence creates a warm and very safe cocoon in which I feel very comfortable away from home. While I'm in New York, I mostly want to hang out with them, so it's a good thing they're such fascinating people.

In fact, hanging out in their living room or at a quiet table in some artsy cafe or bar is just about my favorite thing to do in the City.

I've been to many shows and seen some amazing things, but I'm fortunate to have some seriously interesting friends, and they're really coming into their own as artists and creative people. I feel lucky just to spend time with them and they're as generous with their time as with their hospitality.

So, a great conversation in a comfortable environment with people who care about me. At night I sleep like a rockstar!

Regional 171

I always enjoy pushing the limits of my camera phone. This one shot with at the sun, from a moving train, with the "Lola" filter from CamerBag. Many photographers use their cellphones the way they might have used a poloroid. Now they offer an aesthetic that nods very self-consciously in that direction.

The scene inside the café car on the southbound Amtrak 171 Regional service from New York to Lynchburg was animated and bright. I came in to get a coke and shake the lethargy from my legs and decided to sit and look out the big windows at the enclosing winter landscape. A vivid sundog told of ice crystals high in the atmosphere, vanguard to a immense winter storm.

It was a good situation to push the limits of my cameraphone, as I like to do when I travel. The photographic act opened the floodgates of dialog with the fellow café car passengers. The man at the table with me turned out to be filmmaker Patrick Webb, who like me was returning home from a work stint in the City. The guy behind me with the Ricoh was Sebastijan Jemee, formerly of Charlottesville, now coming down from New York leaden with photographs of his own for a show at the Garage. He had a sidekick who I never formally met.

Conversation swirled from table to table and took on the tempo of a Virginia Reel with the advent of a garrulous bank manager from Roanoke, our unofficial M.C. He introduced himself to everyone in the room with a bright smile, and though I do not remember his name, I could recite his itinerary from memory: Philly to Roanoke via Lynchburg, then back to DC then back to Lynchburg and finally home to Roanoke.

A few other guys in the lounge—and they were all men this time around—nodded or injected the occasional insightful comments but largely kept their cards close to their chests. As we zigged and zagged through the Piedmont and cocktails came out, connections were made, business cards exchanged, and human experiences shared.

Travel can be the act of simply getting from one place to another, a tunnel with an entrance and an exit. The train can be that way too, a bubble rocketing through a straw at a hundred miles an hour. But it is a bubble of oxygen; a social space that encourages interaction. On Amtrak there is a unity between people that is quite special and sometimes the journey can be rewarding time well spent, much more than a necessity for reaching a destination.

On Furlough

Countrymouse in Paradise at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.

A whirlwind trip down to Virginia.

Those less-than-two days were packed with Autumn delights. I carved a pumpkin with a five-year-old--does it get any better than that? I raked leaves, which the same child was only too happy to “smush down.” We hiked through a golden wood and alongside sparkling waters under a pure blue sky. I slept for two nights in my own bed, under my own roof, with my own sweetheart; and it was wonderful. I was like a prisoner on furlough, the kind where he’s sent home for the weekend to breed, except my life in New York is not a prison and I'm no Willie Horton.

More like an exile. (Does that mean that Meredith is under house arrest?)

In a way, it was an example of how lucky I am. I worked like crazy all week in a job that is exhausting but quite interesting. Then I go home and someone paints the mountains all crazy colors and puts pumpkins on all the porches and a smell of autumn on the wind. The art direction was perfect, and everyone was gad to see me.

We were all sad when it was time for me to get back on the bus and head back up to the granite island. It’s fun but I’ll be glad to go back to having just one life at a time.

Up-State state of mind

Enormous thanks to my friend Daphne for letting us stay in her beautiful home, and for providing the porch from which to watch this moonrise. [Photo Gallery]

Last weekend I took a roadtrip with my friend Rachel up the Hudson Valley. Proximity to this magical region is among the greatest pleasures of living in New York City, and one that I will miss the most. It’s also one that is easily neglected in the frenetic life of the City. That feeling of liberation is exactly what makes such a trip so wonderful yet the rush of the City is like the emotional kind of addiction. It seems impossible to simply step away, even for a weekend.

We wrenched ourselves out of the rat race and scurried up the Through Way to the Rondout Valley, between the Gunks and the Catskills and across the Reservoir from Woodstock. That whole mid-Hudson region is a treasure with formidable natural beauty--strange geology, folded glades, mossy rock formations, abundant clean streams, dark woods, and surrounding mountains.

Nature has reclaimed the Nineteenth Century’s crumbling infrastructure (railways, canals, docklands, quarries, millworks, tanneries, and on and on), which adds a whole lot of romance and moss-covered mythical quality. The Hudson River School predisposed us to that way of seeing the world and a veritable army of well-funded conservationists and preservationists have locked it in for us and many future generations of travelers and pilgrims.

Many places are beautiful but the Hudson Valley also happens to be blessed with an absurd cultural abundance as well. There are countless art centers, drama troupes, and musical venues. With just a short two days to explore, Rachel and I focused on the Art of Living and just two towns: one small (Hudson) and one tiny (High Falls).

We walked from shop to shop, each full of beautiful things and so tastefully curated. Not everything will appeal to every eye (although most of it looked good to me). The quality and coherence of the selections were undeniable. I am no materialist but I could really do some damage in the majority of those shops, armed with the right expense account.

High Falls, with a population of about 37 has half a dozen furnishing stores that I could only call top-shelf in terms of quality, though not necessarily price. Our favorite was a slightly-hidden gem called Spruce. Turns out the proprietor lives in Greenpoint. Only figures, right?

The City of Hudson flows down the east side of the Hudson Valley from Olana to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. The downtown, which must have at one time been devastated by job flight has become a gauntlet of antique stores in lovingly restored storefronts, bank branches, movie, theaters, soda fountains, and other Rockwellesque settings. Surprisingly enough, it seems really cool. There wasn’t any of kitsch, schlock, sentimentalism or cloying tchotchkism you would expect in such a place. Nor was there a smell of decay or feeling of decrepitude. Whoever is doing their scouting and buying has some serious eyes and it’s very consistent from one place to the next.

Again, an expense account would be nice up there as some of the shops are a tad pricey but not outrageous. The merchants were super-friendly, knowledgeable and eager to deal. It couldn’t feel more different than East Hampton, for example, or Santa Fe. It’s a fun, friendly place, not annoying at all and well worth a trip. Even I did not escape empty-handed: I found a nice mirror in great condition at a very fair price; and of course a bag of apples.

We finished our visit with a two-hour ride down the Taconic, with the perfect autumnal lighting of late afternoon. My friend Daphne calls it “the Magic Time.”

Magic time, magic place.

Outside Help

Whether you are superstitious or not, if you find a four-leaf clover, you take it. So when I was running in Central Park yesterday, which happened to be the Autumnal Equinox, and found a half-buried horseshoe, I had to pick it up. I’m not sure if it will bring me good luck or not but I’ll take any help I can get. I’ll hang it securely over the doorway of my new house and hope it catches some blessings.

I am already mightily blessed, and not in wealth or talismans. You see, I have powerful friends--not the you'll-never-work-in-this-town-again or break-your-kneecaps-if-you-mess-with-me types. I have that kind of friend too but now I'm speaking of two radiant and wholly benovolent souls in John Adaster and Anki King, who have been hosting me this autumn in New York. More than providing me with shelter, they have been great sources of emotional strength.

They have made me feel very welcome in their midst. How often can anyone say that they feel truly and positively welcome in their environment? Moreover, this is not simply a "make yourself at home," situation. Anki and John actively project an aura of goodwill that invigorates.

I knew it would be pretty great to spend time with them, but I had no idea that they would be such food for the soul. Even though they are extremely serious-minded people, there is a nimbus of joy in their home which is positively invigorating, like the oxygen-rich air you find next to a waterfall. It is a waterfall that has its source in a very deep pool of kindness.

They have many interests and are fascinating conversationalists and we have stayed up late talking about art and a million other things. They're dedicated workers and accomplished artists; one cannot help being inspired by their example. They motivate me to be a better artist and a more graceful host when the opportunity arises.

Being away from home and family is emotionally taxing, and anyone associated with the marathon knows what a crazy atmosphere it can be. Despite it all I have felt calm and steady throughout, ready to thrive, largely through the graces of my angelic hosts.

Thank you.

Northbound Again

I'm really getting to know the Starlight Express. Photo Essay.

I’m back on the bus to NYC to work the Marathon. One would think that it would get slightly easier each time. That is true on the logistical side: I know the ins-and-outs of bus and train travel and I’m getting to be a very speedy packer. In some ways it gets harder. I was extra-sad to say goodbye to my family this time around. Maybe it’s partly my annual end-of-summer blues. Maybe it’s watching Sebastian progress through school that reminds me that he’s getting older, and so am I. I don’t know why I am so sad this time.

Fortunately I’m going to be staying with my friends Anki and John and I’m really looking forward to being around them. They’re cheerful and hard-working artists full of fun ideas and lots of positive energy and big reservoirs of inspiration. I’m really grateful to them for taking me in.

And let’s face it: I’m not exactly going to Cleveland. New York in the autumn is a wonderland for an artist. And the reason I’m going there is extremely cool too: the New ING York City Marathon is an amazing event. It’s extremely energizing (and exhausting). Plus I get to work in my studio for a change. I will have a lot of fun in the City and work hard and earn my keep.

And then I’ll scoot back home.

My Poussin Painting Weekend

So glad we could introduce one of our favorite people--Rachel Liebling (center)--to one of our favorite places--the Goshen Pass. This shot is from the porch of James' parents' so-called cabin. It's more like a compound than a cabin.

It is difficult to imagine a more relaxing or wonderful weekend than the one I just spent in the Goshen Pass. Looking back on it in retrospect, I see that it was special for reasons far beyond the fun and interesting things we did. It was a time when Life really opened up for us in all her beauty, and with a quiet message to embrace it now.

Our friend Rachel was spending the week with us and she brought all kinds of enthusiasm, music, good ideas, helping out around the house and playing with Sebastian. After school on Friday, we all loaded up and drove alongside the Blue Ridge to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. We visited some studios, took a gorgeous swim (I can never help myself), and had a lovely dinner with the fellows. It was great to taste once again Chef Rhonda’s offerings but also to reconnect with the chef herself. She lives in Charlottesville, very close to us, and I hope to get together with her here in the near future.

After dinner, we drove into the sunset and through the fog of a high pass over the mountains and along the Maury River to the Cabin. We’ve been going to “the Cabin” for many years and it’s a major reason why we moved back to Virginia, so we could be closer and go there a few times a year rather than every few years.

Our friend James had a family place on the Goshen Pass, one of the most beautiful places east of the Mississippi. When his family’s lifetime lease on their cabin turned out to be considerably shorter than agreed, James landed on his feet by acquiring an even more beautiful piece of land with a cluster of Civil War era cabins, right across the river, just this side of where the pass closes in around the Maury and a narrow winding road. He and his friends have been renovating the cabins slowly and lovingly for the past ten years. Though the precise locale has changed somewhat, the atmosphere has been constant. So, the Cabin is more about the place, and a state of mind, than a single building. It's about the way we breathe there, and who we spend time with.

James and Marni on the steps of the under-construction cabin.
Photo: Sebastian. Note the waist-high perspective, which is always a dead give-away when he takes the camera.

In fact, we had thought that we would be sleeping in a tent this time, but since most of the cabin owners were away, we were able stay in possibly the most beautiful one. It was the best of both worlds: completely rustic but tightly constructed, beautiful and bug-proof, with a boys’ room that was paradise for our Sebastian.

Morning and afternoon, we skinnidipped in the Maury River, one of the cleanest rivers in Virginia and even from atop the tallest boulder, with which the valley is strewn, we could not see any signs of civilization. To the west, the Allegany Mountains came right down to the water, in an unfurling of ridges and laurel-filled pocket canyons. To the east, the Shenandoah Valley spread in Jeffersonian splendor. The water bounced through the rapids, clear and glistening in the last rays of August, the air so fresh and with a little hint of coolness. It was bliss to dip my head in the water and warm on the rocks.

After dark, we had a communal feast with James, his partner Marni, and our long-time friend-in-cabin-fun Nancy, who is renovating another of the cabins. We toasted Virginia with some champagne we had been saving, a house-warming and farewell gift from our friends Amelia and Mark. After dinner, a beautiful fire—another part of the cabin tradition. By the fireside, we reconnected with the man who lives on the adjoining farm, a bluegrass musician named Cochran and his artist wife and their artist friend who was visiting from (where else?) Greenpoint.

Other highlights included, in no particular order, bare feet in the dewy grass, morning sun on Castle Rock, a run through the silent and misty pass, chatting with old man mushroom hunters, a photo expedition with Sebastian, Lincoln Logs in a log cabin, a beer run that included getting lost (maybe the best part of the trip) and brunch at the Mill Creek Café, the kind of place that’s neither extraordinarily good, nor particularly cheap, but that must be visited.

You can rest easy: Virginia still has her share of freaks.

We drove home through the perfect summer afternoon, with dry air, blue sky, hills all around—Virginia was showing off her full splendor. We stopped by Springtree (the communal farm where Meredith grew up) just long enough for cookies and to show Rachel around the place. She had a bus to catch, so no time for a dip in the hardware, a garden tour, or peaches on the way back. We’ll save those for a later visit, which I sincerely hope will be soon.

After a sad farewell to Rachel back in Charlottesville, I felt a desolation much stronger than I have felt in some time. It is always sad to say farewell to a friend after a wonderful visit, and it’s always harder to be left than to leave. It was an amazing weekend and I was sad for it to be over, yet it is only as I am writing this that I understand the contours of that bittersweet feeling.

As I sat with my friends on the river that last afternoon, that slight chill in the air was important. It hid in the shadows and whispered in the breeze and it would be easy to miss it while baking on those rocks or swimming in the stream, which was still quite warm. But the message was there: Summer was beginning to take its leave, as it does this time every year and it is something that I always sense very acutely and it always leaves me a little melancholy.

Summer is my favorite season, it is when I feel most alive. Although I like the bustle of back-to-school and the brisk Fall air Summer’s passing always makes me a little sad, whether its about the changing of the Seasons or the Passage of Time. I am grateful for the winds’ whisperings because I hear in them an alert to be sure to embrace the Now, for it is fleeting. We still have plenty of time left, but we had better use it well, for it will not be around forever.

One final note: Thank you James. It's good to be back.

Patty Fab

Among the many cool and/or wacky things in this photo, note the sailboat whose bowsprit has punctured the lighthouse, fatally wounding it. The nameplate reads, "Brant Point, Nantucket."

During my periodic visits up to New York, my lodging consists of a cobbled together collection of couch surfing, spare bedrooms, house- and pet-sitting. There are some clear disadvantages to this approach but there are some great benefits, many quite unexpected.

For example, this current time, I wasn't sure where I would stay so I listed house-sitting availability on facebook. Right away my friend Patty said she needed a cat-sitter and the dates worked out pretty well.

It's fair to say that I knew Patty somewhat but not nearly as well as I would have liked. I was in for a very pleasant surprise when I first encountered her space.

From a realtor's perspective the place is very good but not amazing--big one bedroom in a nice building on a still-interesting block of the Upper West Side. But the way Patty inhabits the place is truly extraordinary, a real lesson for one such as me who is thinking about his own new space.

The apartment, with its many shelves and surfaces, is full of artifacts, talismans, books, mementos, and works of art by her hand and others', almost like a museum.

Here's a small example. Her shower curtain is made of clear plastic with many pockets, each with a postcard, from exotic places, with birthday wishes, vintage dime novel covers, or watercolor reproductions--a lot to look at and quite expressive. And that's just the shower curtain.

This is a place to spend some time looking around, a place that lifts me up simply by being there. In arranging to house sit and take care of patty's cats I was hoping to find a place to sleep between working, running, looking at art and all the many things to do in the City. I think that's how many New Yorkers view their dwellings.

Patty's place is about something more. It feels rewarding just to be there, to explore the many treasures she has collected and actually curated. It's a wealth that comes from within her, a very physical expression of the artist she is.

It's a gift she has generously shared with me and one I did not expect.

Sun of the Beach

Like our President, Sebastian finds himself in a gigantic hole, not of his own making...

It has been ten years since I’ve been back to Chincoteague, where I had had been every summer as a youth and I was surprised how little had changed. There are a few more beachy-schlockity shops crammed along Beach Drive but hey, it’s a beach town, right? Everything seems to have a fresh coat of paint and it feels more, well, prosperous. Of course we’re all upset that our favorite seafood buffet is replaced by “that Mexican Place” (actual name of the joint) but everything changes.

I always felt like it was a sleepy and depressed fishing town overlooking a once-spectacular-but-played-out fishery that resented the beach combers bunking in their spare rooms. Embracing the new reality has made the place feel more fresh and vital, while providing a reason to preserve what makes the place so different.

The nearby beaches on Assateauge, on the other hand, have changed a lot. There were once an elaborate network of bath houses behind formidable dunes. The dunes have washed away leaving a wide beach and two rows of oyster shell roads with parking and temporary facilities for showering, dressing, and answering nature’s call. Seems a lot more sensible actually and the beaches are flat and wide.

There was also something visual going on that took me a while to appreciate. The umbrellas and bathing suits and even the ocean seem much more vivid than what I am accustomed to seeing on Long Island. Finally, I understood: the light is much more intense. Northern light is filtered by more atmosphere, which gives it a pale, fleeting quality, whereas further south the light is more direct and brighter.

I suppose John Singer Sargent would prefer Nantucket or Montauk but I’m pretty sure van Gogh would chose Assateague.

Time Flies

My last post talked about using my cell phone as an at-the-ready replacement for my lost elph. Turns out I'm not alone. One of the blogs I follow on the NY Times (Lens) has an excellent posting about cell-phone photos as an art form with tons of great submissions from readers. This shot is from Amelia & Mark's front window, where I've been staying. Thanks for putting me up guys!

Many people have asked if I feel strange to be back in New York. Same block, same building even! But no, it’s all very straight-forward and like when I lived here it was daily business: eating bagels, riding the subway, working the job I’ve had for ten years, annoying crowds on Bedford Avenue, subterranean studio, navigating (surfing, really!) the City’s complexities. It feels quite normal, really.

What does feel odd is being separated from my family and my home and all its comforts, even if many of them are still packed in boxes. I’m eager to get back to the projects I have begun back in Virginia. But no odd sentimental here-but-gone feeling I would have expected. I felt that way before I moved.

What is strange is the feeling that far more than three weeks have passed since we pulled up the stakes. That’s less time than I usually spend away during the typical summer. Maybe it’s because, as I just mentioned, my heart had moved quite some time ago. Maybe it’s because Time flows at different speeds; Hawking’s proposition that time flows in proportion to a body’s velocity. And my body has been in serious motion.

Interestingly, it’s not just my perception, everyone I talk to says the same thing,

“I can’t believe you only moved three weeks ago!”

I guess I’m living in a singularity.

A Most Dramatic Welcome

Ever since I lost my Elph, I've been trying my hand at phone photography to fill that spontaneous poloroidesque snapshot role that my SLR can't handle because it's too bulky or not convenient enough. This shot was taken while I was stuck in traffic in Newark,

This is a special moment for the blog: the first time I'm venturing into the City after setting up shop in Virginia. In a way, it's what we've all been waiting for: the CountryMouse gets his turn in the City.

I just got here and need to digest a little bit before I can say how it feels to be back (maybe it's the huge pork burrito I just inhaled?). The return trip was certainly momentous, beautiful and precipitous.

If I had very jumbled feelings about returning to the City that Never Sleeps, it was nothing compared to what was happening in the stratosphere.

Instead of the typical I-95 route, I prefer whenever possible to drive up I-81 through the gorgeous Shenandoah Valley to I-84 through Pennsylvania Dutch country. It's just as fast (if not faster) and so beautiful as to make the trip itself almost a pleasure.

Almost.

Anyway, it was a perfect summer day with that golden light falling softly over blue mountains, green forests, and tan fields of wheat and mature corn. All the way up, there were huge mounds of storm-bearing clouds to my right, the East, as I traveled North. When I turned East just past Harrisburg, I was exposed to a full-frontal view of a spectacular meteorological show. Those huge anvil clouds let loose in front of me with tons of lightning and black skies beneath the towering thunderheads. Never on me, mind you, always in front of me. It was like a show (or demonstration) set up specifically for me.

As I crossed the Lehigh River and then the Delaware, the most amazing and huge rainbow opened in front of me and stayed there for almost two hours, all the way into New York.

I-84 in New Jersey was a scene of post-apocalyptic destruction. An interstate strewn with huge trees and underpasses so badly flooded I was grateful for the gas-guzzling (but 4WD capable) vehicle I drive. I found out later that tornadoes had passed through.

Nearly out of gas from the traffic, I had to take a short detour into Newark, where I heard the quote of the day,

Man #1: “Muy Humido!”

Man #2: “Yeah, soon its gonna start to stink like Hell.”

Now I'm back in Williamsburg and the air is sultry with clothes clinging to bodies, suggestion in the air like the honeysuckle and wild rose smell back in Central Virginia. So it's not all bad.

That's why summer is my favorite time of year. I love the sweaty bodies and not needing (or wanting) to wear much. I like the long days, the dramatic weather, and the languorous erosion of the membrane that separates us from the Natural World and from one another. Not a complete dissolution-just a little bit closer and more connected.

A Shout Out to you, the Readers

Because there are so few comments on the blog, I had assumed that no one is reading it. Turns out, au contraire!!! I've been getting lots of feedback lately through other channels: Facebook, emails, even phone calls thanking me or commenting on something I've written. It means a lot to me to know that there are others relating to what I'm writing. THANK YOU!!!

The coolest part of the highlight of a nice holiday weekend

There are plenty of familiar faces at the Yousuf Karsh retrospective at the MFA.
Karsh, Estrellita Karsh, 1963. (MFA via Time.com)

On Boxing Day, Cole and I left the Booga with his grandparents (we were staying in Rhode Island) and spent a date-day in Boston. I wanted to see several shows at the MFA followed by some strolling, casual coffee, opportunistic post-Xmas recession sale trolling, dinner and
conversation. Just a nice day together, which I'm sure the parents among you will appreciate.

We had a nice lunch at the museum's mid-casual cafe between the excellent Assyrian show and the promising Karsh photoretrospective. We sat next to a striking older woman I was sure I had seen someplace before. She was eating with a younger woman (perhaps my age) who kept thanking her profusely for something (we could not hear what). She personalized a catalogue from the Karsh exhibit and Cole glimpsed the name Karsh in the signature (we were sitting that close).

Later, after the nice Rachel Whitetead installation, we took our time and took a quality look at the Karsh show. After all the famous portraits--Einstein, Jackie-O, Mother Theresa, we saw one that positively made our jaws drop: his widow Estrellita, the woman from the cafe! It was only then we noticed every piece in the show was "courtesy Estrellita Karsh." That explained some things.

I love it when I catch a personal glimpse at the invisible bonds that tie the universe together, an artist's version of "dark matter." I love to witness capital moments and I love it when some instinct alerts me to that moment's importance. It was cool that I was able to share that moment with someone who knew how to fully appreciate it.

On a wonderful day that was the best part of the holiday weekend, that moment was the highlight, the beating heart that sent the blood of inspiration coursing through my soul.

---

Postscript: I crossed Bedford Avenue to write this entry at the Rabbit Hole, which has become a sort of writers room for both Meredith and me. The writing took a lot longer than expected because an excellent band was playing (they've never had music there before): Brooklyn
Browngrass, one of my favorites. Turns out their members are from Charlottesville. A thousand more dark matter threads to explore there if I wanted to...

But it's late, we're all tired, the cafe is closing and it's time to file my missive. They'll be back next Saturday...