"There's no sense beating a dead horse. But if you've reached the point where you even seriously consider that abusing a dead animal might improve your lot in life, I say go ahead and give it a shot."
-- Anthony Myers --
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Thursday, at the country house, I was debating staying another night, and then visiting someplace nice on Friday morning. Like maybe go to Poet's Walk, or to the Rhinecliff Hotel to have breakfast on the patio and watch the ships on the Hudson, or to the Ulster Town Park to dabble in the water and feed the fish, or to North and South Lakes and check out the view over the escarpment, or to Rhinebeck to do some window shopping, or to visit any of a dozen waterfalls, or to climb the tower at Mohonk (there's a picture here, for more search for "Mohonk Fire Tower"), or I could even wander around Woodstock, get a tarot reading, buy some special incense.
I ultimately decided not to stay another night, but thinking about all the places I missed made me realize that here, at the city house, there's no place around here that I want to go. There are a few quaint places, but they're crowded and difficult to get to. There's the shore, and beaches, but they are crowded and too developed. There are wooded parks, but they are too tamed and manicured and lifeless. Nothing I've found around here so far is soothing to the soul.
At the country house, even the simple drive to interesting places is beautiful and relaxing. Not so, here. Even if you find a wonderful spot, by the time you've fought traffic to get there and find a safe place to leave the car, you're ready to bite the head off any (obviously lost) rabbit that crosses your path.
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2 comments:
Sorry to say, this has always been my experience of Jersey. As Gertrude Stein said, "There's no 'there' there." Or maybe it was Edith Wharton. Anyway, if you look a little closer, you'll see that practically every activity in New Jersey centers around children under 16, most especially middle and lower class kids.
The sole purpose of the Middlesex borough Memorial Day parade is to show off hundreds of kids in their new baseball uniforms.
It's hard to get to know people here unless you have kids. That seems to be the glue that holds most of these communities together.
I'm sorry you're finding this out. I wish I could have found a way to warn you.
Look me up next time you're in the area. We could have lunch or coffee or something.
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