It’s Saturday morning and I’m sitting up in bed with my coffee cup. Janyce just appeared in the doorway with hers in two hands, whispering.
“The chicken has left the coop,” she says.
“Already? She went out?” I say. I notice how much hope is in my voice.
Janyce frowns. “Well no, not that. The eagle hasn’t landed yet.”
Seriously, this is how we talk to each other now. Bird metaphors and baby talk.
I hear the jingling of collar tags as our new rescue dog rolls around on her back on the scratchy wool rug in the hallway. We’re five weeks in and some things are getting better, but plenty of things have a long way to go. She is getting used to Uncle Jim, so that’s a win. Getting her outside to do her business is spotty. She’ll go when she’s ready. But not on our timeframe. On hers.
All this to say that my morning of writing isn’t happening today. We have too many things to do and we have to tag team it all weekend. Our fearful rescue dog isn’t ready for daycare, or to be left alone in the house without one of us, or even to go to the vet yet, and oh god does she need a bath. I’m going out this afternoon, Janyce will go out later.
Today I’m offering a repeat. If you read it before, just skip it and I’ll be back next week. But if you missed this one, it’s one of my favorites: one of my favorite weekends, with my favorite person, in one of my all-time favorite places (the Hudson River Valley) and right before— I mean, right before—the pandemic hit us all.
I glance over at Janyce and she’s smiling. It’s the most relaxed the two of us have been in weeks and our weekend has only just started.
“Remember the “O”s—
the buffalos, the cheerios, not so cheerios.
Remember the “O”s—
Geronimos, Guantanamos, the dominos,
are all of those.
“Radio zone, video zone, stereo zone, the Ozone.”
“Wow, these are the worst lyrics,” I say to my spouse Janyce sitting beside me in the passenger seat of my red Toyota, as we go speeding down the Mass Pike. It’s a brisk sunny Saturday and we’re continuing on our surprise road trip after taking a pit stop in Stockbridge for lunch.
“But overall it’s actually not too bad,” I say, “What do you think that instrument is?”
“I think that might be the goat skin Bulgarian bagpipe,” says Janyce, reading from the back of the CD case.
We’re listening to the first CD out of the two we just purchased in the funky record shop next to the Main Street Café. “Okay, this is the deal,” I said earlier, while standing by the used CDs all lined up along a wall on a dusty wooden shelf, wearing the red beret I grabbed from off of the hat rack, price tag hanging by my ear. “You have to close your eyes and pick one of these CDs and then I have to do the same,” I said, “and whatever we both choose we have to listen to it in the car — the entire CD— for the rest of the drive.”
Janyce reached over and started to scan the titles.
“Nuh ah uh!” I said, “You have to close your eyes and pick. That’s the rule.”
“That’s the rule, huh?” she said.
On the previous Monday, I decided that, after weeks of reading The New York Times Coronavirus updates every day, I needed to do something more productive and that meant taking Janyce on a weekend away to a new destination. “Are you going to tell me where we are going?” she said, as we were sitting at the lunch counter, each of us dipping a round spoon into our cups of homemade soup. “Not yet,” I said. My turkey orzo was shiny with oil and I played with the squares of celery and carrots, pushing them up and down in the broth. “I want a bite of yours,” I said. Hers was a creamy lentil with a hint of lemon and thyme. The two of us were also sharing a pressed Cuban sandwich heavily laden with mustard and tangy pickles.
On the wall across from us was an Americana picture painted on a board of New England houses and church steeples. It was hanging above a tiered bookshelf filled with frog tchotchkes. I stared at it while sipping from my cup of Lipton tea. Janyce was already eyeing the menu for the desserts. “So, I’m sure we are going out tonight for dinner, right? Should I skip dessert now?” said Janyce. “Absolutely not,” I said, “You’ll just have two.” The waitress placed Janyce’s chocolate mousse cheesecake that was small and round and about the size of a flattened tennis ball before her on the counter. I watched her eat it while peering over the rim of my powder blue cup.
“Remember the “O”s—
the big egos, land logos, and all those embryos
“Remember the “O”s—
the rhinos, the Navahos, the dominos,
are all of those
Radio zone, video zone, stereo zone, the Ozone.”
“I think this is kind of growing on me.” I say, “this music is very weird and catchy.”
Janyce is reading the liner notes from the CD out loud from what seems to me to be a kind of Afro-Cuban, Middle-Eastern world music, with castanets, violins, and something sounding like a Vietnamese stringed instrument. A tiny white sticker on the back of the CD says $6.50 written in pencil.
“The musicians are all from Iran, Afghanistan, one guy is from Spain,” says Janyce.
We’re back in the car now for the next two hours of driving and we’ve lost the sun. Outside we pass by craggy rock walls mounded with bluish white ice, trickles of water still running down the sides. We drive through some snow squalls that cause a brief white out on this mild and almost March day, at the start of the longest, hardest month of the year. Out the window passes quick views of farmland and mountains and rivers and we drive over steel bridges as the sun starts to peek out again from behind the clouds.
“Ok, I’m going to tell you where we’re headed.” I say. “New Paltz NY.”
“New Paltz NY, huh?” she says.
“Well, you know how much I like this area,” I say.
The first time we tried the Hudson River Valley it was February. After practically wearing out our vinyl copy of the jazz album “Covered” we got for Christmas, I impulsively bought us tickets online to hear Robert Glasper at Skidmore College.
“We’ll make a weekend out of it. A road trip!” I said.
Then came a long weekend to the small city of Hudson in 2016 after the shocking election news, the two of us drowning our sorrows in coffee and waffles and buying waxed-cotton motorcycle pants and antique glasses for cocktails. We marveled at how the entire downtown was draped in large purple HOPE flags designed by a local artist, and hanging outside every shop and restaurant window.
And then we spent a full week just last summer in Woodstock, walking up and down the hippy main street, drinking cocktails with foamy white tops and taking long drives along endless green-leafed roads in search of a lake to swim in.
“So I got us an airbnb this time in a town called Clintondale and it’s about ten minutes outside of New Paltz, which is supposed to be an artsy, college town. SUNY is there, and a rail trail so we can hike,” I say, rambling on, stream of consciousness style. “I researched some plays, and there are shops, maybe some live music, anything we want.”
“Oh, and our cabin has a view of the Mohonk mountains,” I say.
I glance over at Janyce and she’s smiling. It’s the most relaxed the two of us have been in weeks and our weekend has only just started.
“Okay and here is the best part— there is this German restaurant in walking distance to our place.” I say, and then pause for dramatic effect. “Bratwurst and Spaetzle.”
I read something some time ago as I was mindlessly scrolling though my Instagram feed, sitting on the train, on yet another day commuting to work.
It read:
“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful, it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing. Hold on through the awful. And relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living— heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s beautiful.”
“Bratwurst and Spaetzle,” says Janyce. “Sign me up.”