They Eyed Me, Suspiciously

My older one has often said that this would never be a “home” to her.   Memories, sure.   Pleasant enough to visit, but: “what is the New Paltz area to me?”  Unlike her younger sister, she’s unlikely to ever do more than visit.  Water wears down stone, as I pointed out on the rail trail into town, where the rushing current has carved itself a smooth channel through the slate.  “Let’s head up to Rosendale for a lunch.  They have a vegetarian restaurant there that you’ll probably dig.”  My wife, the younger one, my stepson and his wife had all headed down into the city and we’d been left alone.

The Rosendale Café is there at the end of Main St, before the road begins to climb.  I hadn’t thought of it, but they have a big lot for parking which is a big help.  Pulling in I shared a yarn with my older-one about the last time I’d been here.  Her mother and I had gone into a neighboring gallery after dining on salads and humous at the “Rosendale Café, last August.  Inside, my wife, considering how she might profile the work of aspiring artists she works with in China asked the innocent question: “Do you need an art degree to post your work in here?”  The man and the woman who were there, holding down the fort, were aghast: “I don’t have a degree.  If you think you are an artist, then you are an artist!”  And then they eyed me, suspiciously. 

We had a fine lunch and an even better chat.  I remember so clearly when it suddenly became lovely to converse with my mother, parental pressure, parental artifice removed, the need to dodge and escape receded.  We could begin to be friends. And so I learned about her first semester and all that she cared to share with me, listening and trying to absorb. 

She didn’t need to see the art gallery next door nor the place that pickles kimchi.   We drove up and over the ridge that the Rosendale Trestle spans and off into the woods.  Route 213 out of Rosendale wasn’t something I’d ever driven before and winding along the Rondout Creek, along the mountains it wasn’t hard to invoke a bit of the discovery we’d normally savor in Abydos or Tbilisi.  High Falls seemed a cool little town.  So did Stone Ridge with all the lovely old wooden buildings.  I didn’t know where we were going but by the time I reached Accord it seemed like it was time to head back up over the mountain that otherwise looked down on us in New Paltz. 

Sometimes in dreams I imagine myself going beyond a known boundary and discovering something remarkable and new.  For example: l lived on Pitt St. for many years in my twenties.  It is Avenue C, below Houston.  I often have dreams where I discover a way into Avenue F and Avenue E and a marvelous and necessarily cool extension of Alphabet City that was there all the time.  Today was a bit like that.

Saturday 12/28/19