Letter No. 38 [finding places to get lost]
Dear Friend,
We had our first snow a few days ago. Big, blurry flakes that lasted all morning. Today the wind hasn’t stopped blowing, but I went out for a ride.
One of my favorite things to do here is go on car rides, out of town, down the winding country roads. I try to find the roads that branch from the main ones—and it’s down these roads that I discover the old farmhouses and still-green fields, the quiet marshes and gravelly paths, the mailboxes few and far between.
I suppose this is my way of finding adventure, in a small way. I don’t know what I’ll discover on these roads. Perhaps I’ll find a new hide-away and place to write. Perhaps I’ll find a charming country farmhouse.
I did discovered a giant, white house today, the windowpanes criss-crossed, Tudor-style. It looked vacant, its summer residents long gone and the house left to itself as winter blows in.
Just a little further up the little road I stopped, and it overlooked a wide expanse of farmland and hills. By the road sat a bench, and a little engraving on a rock beside it said it was put there in honor of a woman named Nancy, who had loved to gaze at the hills of the Berkshires, especially in that spot. I could see why.
The seasons change this place so much. There is something new that shows up with each change—a quality hidden in the other seasons.
I love this lake. I lifeguarded here a few summers while in college. Bald eagles would fly over and fish in the mornings, and the rowing teams would go by, their instructor shouting through a megaphone from his powerboat. There’s just something about the open water. Something raw and freeing.
Another place I like to go is the Pittsfield State Forest. You can access it through multiple points across a Pittsfield and Lenox, and it’s another good place to hideaway and think. Or not think.
I try to take something with me to experience these places—a pen and notebook, poetry, my camera. I try to find new ways of thinking of things, or looking at things. Mostly I just enjoy being out amongst the trees and feeling alive.
I hope you find your own places to hideaway if you don’t already have them. I think we all need them. :)
Tara