Upstate vs. Hamptons, discussed
The world upstate may be smaller, and closer, than thought. Or the world that spins outwards from 9G, the Taconic and the familiar Rhinebeck/Rhinecliff realm.
I met the owners of my house (house name?) when there with the bug and house innards inspectors last week. First Mrs. Haddad (Carrie) - a force and familiar - then Mr. Haddad in a worn van with rowboat strapped aloft – pulling in as we pulled out. They own galleries, this is their newest. And that is, of course, them.
Jessica knows them having moved through in same Hudson social circuit. Cintra's aunt and uncle (visiting Cin & Ian in BA) know germantown, recommend a mexican restaurant nearby. I look at the map now and can almost find my little plot on it, on the strip of road that continues north out of Dutchess, plunging into the true farm lands of Columbia County, and from there northwards to the truer "upstate" of the state.
At familiar and still extraordinarily pretty Rhinecliff station that evening, in the also familiar pattern of waiting for the Empire Line train to creep down across the border and south from Albany, I read through the thicket of free station literature. After weekends in the Hamptons, and the inane glossiness of the island's free lit, the subdued, recycled newsprint of the Catskill/Hudson Valley/Berkshires weeklies was a relief. No party pictures (no full color really), so spa ads without at least a mention of reiki/healing, organic-this, bread baking that, soul-finding/searching/mending everywhere. Like taking the parts of New York City that are best, sloughing off the upper east side, meatpacking and club life, and re-invigorating the bits that are still grounded.
Or so it seemed to me with 2 hours on my bench and only the stack of free lit to kill the time, and my camera.
C
I met the owners of my house (house name?) when there with the bug and house innards inspectors last week. First Mrs. Haddad (Carrie) - a force and familiar - then Mr. Haddad in a worn van with rowboat strapped aloft – pulling in as we pulled out. They own galleries, this is their newest. And that is, of course, them.
Jessica knows them having moved through in same Hudson social circuit. Cintra's aunt and uncle (visiting Cin & Ian in BA) know germantown, recommend a mexican restaurant nearby. I look at the map now and can almost find my little plot on it, on the strip of road that continues north out of Dutchess, plunging into the true farm lands of Columbia County, and from there northwards to the truer "upstate" of the state.
At familiar and still extraordinarily pretty Rhinecliff station that evening, in the also familiar pattern of waiting for the Empire Line train to creep down across the border and south from Albany, I read through the thicket of free station literature. After weekends in the Hamptons, and the inane glossiness of the island's free lit, the subdued, recycled newsprint of the Catskill/Hudson Valley/Berkshires weeklies was a relief. No party pictures (no full color really), so spa ads without at least a mention of reiki/healing, organic-this, bread baking that, soul-finding/searching/mending everywhere. Like taking the parts of New York City that are best, sloughing off the upper east side, meatpacking and club life, and re-invigorating the bits that are still grounded.
Or so it seemed to me with 2 hours on my bench and only the stack of free lit to kill the time, and my camera.
C
Comments