A Tromp Along the Housatonic River

[mallorys_camera]

Rendezvoused at Monument Mountain yesterday with the fabulous <asakiyume, our annual meet-up-in-the-flesh since—hélas!—even though I’d love to hang out w/asakiyume more often; indeed, I’d like to do a writing group w/asakiyume: she has the most exquisite editorial sensibilities—we live just far enough away from one another to make that inconvenient.

AI clearly hates me: There were lots of routes to choose from, but GPS routed me to Great Barrington over the hideous NY Interstate where everyone whizzes by at 90 mph and then ended up dumping me in a construction site where a bunch of trucks were doing their best to level Monument Mountain and turn it into McMansions Central. A grizzled old trucker with stained teeth putted up to me to hiss, “Private property.”

Eventually I figured out how to get to the nature preserve part of the mountain. It had no toilets. So then asakiyume & I had to crash a soccer tournament at the local high school where asakiyume & I masqueraded as soccer grandmas.

When finally we set out on our hike, I had to face an unwelcome truth about myself: Namely that at 72 years old, I am no longer spry enough to hike 30 feet straight up a vertical mountainside with few visible footholds. Yes, I tromp regularly, & I’m still good for long-ish hikes on flat surfaces with gentle rises, but my days of hiking steep grades—unless I’m being pursued by Nazis—are gone, baby, gone.

asakiyume was very understanding.



After Mexican food in Great Barrington (which was crowded), we finally ended up on a path along the Housatonic River, extremely pretty and filled with small mysteries since it is a floodplain that at various times has been meadow, farmland, forest, and dump—between the 1930s and the 1970s, it was a favorite site for General Electric to dispose of its PCB-laden waste materials in.

All sorts of strange & beautiful plants grow there now in jungle-ish profusion:



Here is asakiyume with a very characteristically asakiyume expression on her face:



asakiyume takes delight in the discovery of small things that very few people—certainly not me—are attuned enough to notice.

In this photo, she is discovering the remains of an ancient apple orchard whose existence she deduced by the existence of a gnawed green apple along the path.

The apple trees were leafless and black. Eerie, really. They hardly looked alive except for small green apples bobbing on their black, leafless branches; they must have been very, very old.

Instinctively, I began looking around for old lilac bushes, which is how I used to identify the remains of ancient homesteads when I used to go bivouacking in the backcountry outside Ithaca: The landscaping persists long after even structural foundations disappear.

But I couldn’t see any.

So, this would have been agricultural land, but not a village.



The sun peeped through the cloud cover in Great Barrington, and I felt a lift in my existential gloom.

And, again, when the sun finally broke through the clouds here this morning, I felt a huge lightening.

So, my edginess and anhedonia really would seem to be early onset SAD.

Unfortunate, this. It’s wayyyyyy too early for cannabis prophylaxis.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Man you really captured the beauty of the sky + earth of yesterday. THOSE CLOUDS! Otherworldly portal ready!

My hypothetical soccer grandkid is SUCH a star. I'm so proud of them.

[mallorys_camera]

I'm sorry, but my imaginary grandchild Larkin could mop the floor with yr imaginary grandson DuBois any day of the week. 😀

[asakiyume]

I adore our grandchildren's names!

[summersgate]

It's heartening to hear that a nonrainy day and some sun, and time with a good friend (!) can relieve the gloomy feelings. It seems like many days since I've been on a good hike.

[mallorys_camera]

But I've read the entry you wrote for this morning, & see you've remedied that lack! 😀

[smokingboot]

Eternal youth in those expressions. You two really are beautiful!

[mallorys_camera]

Ah! Thank you, my friend. ❤️