On Thursday afternoon, after all my meetings were completed, I tossed a bag together and coerced my 18-year-old twins to hop in the car and head north.
Three and a half hours later (I believe pedal to the metal would best describe the trip up), we arrived at my brother Jim and sister-in-law Libby’s home in the beautiful city of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
It’s not the first time we have been here, but the kids had not taken the trip for nearly two years. I’d come up on my own last fall for a very brief socially-distanced visit. Yesterday, we spent the afternoon walking in the Pittsfield State Forest, where Voula was salamander hunting in the azalea fields, checking out Balanced Rock park where the trail was more for ATVs than people, and the community garden where Libby has a plot. It was a gorgeous afternoon and just warm enough to feel like summer in the mountains.
Today, the kids and I walked the forest trails around The Mount, the site of Edith Wharton’s home in Lenox. Around the grounds and in the woods were a variety of sculptures and there were more people out today, Saturday, than yesterday afternoon. The Mount is scheduled to close early today; looked like the staff was prepping for a wedding. It is a perfect day for it: 80’s with low humidity and a light breeze.
Normally, I wouldn’t make the drive up unless it was a holiday weekend – but having hung about at home this past holiday weekend developing a severe case of wanderlust (or was it simply the fact that I was going stir-crazy?) just made my accelerator foot itch for the highway. Sadly, I was unaware of the fact that my kids had made plans with their friends for the weekend that I totally obliterated with the demand to accompany me on the ride up. (Will the motherly guilt never cease? So many things….)
I’ve spent a lot of time in the state of Massachusetts over the past year, quarantine and all. Lots and lots of trips to Lisa’s in Springfield, where I planted my son for three months in hopes to provide him a different perspective, only to have it look exactly like quarantine at home – just in someone else’s house. Between Massachusetts and Maryland, that three and a half hour trek in either direction, has become old hat somehow. For someone who had previously hated driving and wouldn’t even consider an impromptu visit more than an hour from home, this is a radical change in perspective.
Perhaps it was the lockdown and monotony of it all that facilitated that change in me. Hard to say.
Or perhaps it was my uneasiness of leaving my kids home alone that made it easier for me to decline invitations or rationalize my antisocial behavior. These days though, there are very few invitations that I decline. And I will hop in the car (most of the time – if I’ve been in the car for a day I usually need a rest) to see friends.
I didn’t realize that there is freedom associated with adult-aged children until it happened. And now, well, the Berkshires call to me. It also helps that my family is here; they have extra rooms and are generally happy to see me. And while the relaxed nature of their lives and their home may be considered boring to the young adults, it is like heaven to me. My bestie lives less than an hour from them, at least until she heads back down south where winter is a whole lot more tolerable. We are of the mind that her living in Western Mass was divine intervention to make her more accessible to me. It’s a wonderful thing to be able, within a few hours, to escape to either home. And know I have my own room in either place.
We’re here until noon-ish tomorrow when we head back to reality in New Jersey. The kids will be happy. I will be yearning for the shady front porch on Wendell Avenue.