Tale of Two Cities

Two weeks and counting...
Tomorrow, H returns to work in Boston. A bridge to another world will be crossed.
I will stay in Vermont.

We have talked about my returning with him, but there is the garden to tend, the writing to do, and a proposal to write for a new project that is both ambitious and exciting and WAY beyond the scope of what we have done before. If we pursue this, it would lead us down a different road than we have taken in the past. And it could make living in Vermont both possible and necessary. But it is the longest of long shots. (Something like getting married at our tender ages with all of our baggage.)

We went to see the new Woody Allen movie last night in Glens Falls at a place called Aimie's Dinner and a Movie. I recommend it. There are about 40 seats, at tables of two and banquettes of four with a movie screen along one long wall. They serve dinner (and have a full bar), so that you can eat while watching the movie in what feels like a private screening room for 39 of your closest friends. There's something intimate about seeing a movie this way. The food isn't great, but the experience is still compelling.

After dinner, we walked around Glens Falls which seems to be having some kind of rebirth.  There are a number of storefronts for sale or lease, but there are new restaurants and a tiny art gallery that is OPEN at 8:30 p.m. and a patisserie with air brushed chocolates (which truth to tell are prettier than they are tasty). We had coffee at a table on the street and then wandered around looking at the wonderful architectural details of the downtown. There was a band playing outside the micro-brew pub, next door to the movie theater, and everyone downtown could share in the music even if they weren't eating at the pub. The woman running the gallery is part of a group of volunteers staffing the space donated by the software developer who owns the building. And a great inaugural piece it was! (Oh yes, and her children were playing in the back of the gallery--nice to see kids growing up with art--quite literally).

The library is screening a first run movie and has a major presence on the main street, next door to the refurbished 300 seat theater that is hosting an off (really off!) Broadway production. The mix of stores leaves something to be desired, but it is a start and there are people wandering around downtown--and they are pretty age-diverse (though mostly white). There is a great bakery and cafe just off the main street and a condo development that has a really nice staggered roof line that echoes some of the vernacular architectural character. The development seems to be spilling out onto streets off the main drag and there are benches and store-sponsored artist-painted Adirondack chairs along the street that encourage people to hang out in places where they don't have to be paying for the privilege, and in fact, people were sitting in small clusters all along the street.

We had a nice time.

....Pause......

As I said, today however was Herb's last full day here, and we wanted to take in some of the landscape. It was a beautiful day of doing the American thing and burning a tank of gas to see some small Vermont towns and the West Rutland marsh. We ended the evening in Manchester (Vermont), at our great indie book store. We wandered a while and chose some books that looked intriguing, and then, still sleep-deprived we launched an expedition for a cup of iced coffee for me and iced tea for Herb. The cafe in the book store was closed. I asked the book seller where the cafe / patisserie known as "Mother Myrick's" had moved. He didn't know but thought they would be closed anyway... "Saturday at 7 p.m. you know."  I asked where he would go if he wanted a cup of coffee.  He paused, and we said in unison, "Home."

Herb pointed out the Dunkin' Donuts. I have an aversion for no apparent reason to them and said, I didn't mind if he wanted to stop there but I didn't want their coffee. He didn't want to get iced tea leaving me drink-less. We drove down the strip of restaurants out of town, but neither of us wanted a full meal and there aren't really any cafes there. We turned and headed back. I suggested the tiny Ben and Jerry's window and indeed got the equivalent of a coffee milk shake, but they had no tea. We drove to the Dunkin' Donuts for Herb's iced tea. It's at a gas station. The gas station was open. The Dunkin' Donuts was closed.  "Saturday. 7 o'clock." We drove home, and I read to him from Roger Rosenblatt's book on teaching writing.

And now we are both writing.

What is it in a good and vital downtown that is necessary to the spirit? What is it in a streetscape alive with people that improves the quality of life for those who have the privilege of sharing in its fluid creative scene? There were no dramatic revelations after we left Glens Falls. In fact we had a serious and difficult discussion afterward that left both of us feeling rather raw. But a day later, after driving in search of something ubiquitous in the rest of America, I am left wondering about a community that is effectively dead... and what the loss is.

I talk incessantly, obsessively about community and how important it is... but in these two nights we saw the difference in a place where it is being built and another where it is being destroyed. Maybe this has little to do with our marriage. Maybe it has everything to do with it... as we are trying to build on the community that came together two weeks ago tonight.

A community that comes together for many reasons, is like a couple that sees more than one thing in each other. Neither Herb nor I much liked the plot or the acting in the Woody Allen movie, but we loved the photography of Paris... and the walkable streets. At some point the main character is describing what it is that he shares with his fiance. "It's probably the little things that we share--like we both like Indian food," he says. "But what we want in the big things is pretty different."

In the end, it is the landscape of Paris that is the measure of what he wants in life - a place where walking the streets allows one to imagine and explore and meet other people and find treasures in the book stalls and markets along the street. And it is this that Herb and I are drawn to... because it is the marker of community. Even as it is radically different than this place we call "home."  But it is this that we want to build here... a place for people to take a walk and find something they never knew they wanted. Sort of like us, perhaps....