This place is nothing but seasonal shifting. We've been here 10 years and it is all about the weather. Today is early April, with birds wildly cheerful, but there is a weirdness about the incipient green tipping the hills within my view. It should be slightly less apparent and more in keeping with the still-grayish light.
Looking for closure, whether New York or here, I am kidding myself that I have much future at al. My 69th birthday next week, only a few years of words left. Am I really so unhappy that I never became a writer? When I was a kid upstate, the first book I ever read had vivid colored pictures and a font that still knocks at my memory with joy. The pride in my first terrible weird poem drove me to add "not copied or traced" to the end of every work of youthful authorship. I didn't want to be an author, then. I was an author, confident in my baby books, my stick figure words, self-adoring every sentence.
After I grew up and understood that no one had any interest in copying or tracing my work, this early foray into the importance of copyright still served me in my work in publishing other authors. However, I did not become an author myself. I only wanted to be one. My novels were a series of unfinished plots and cloudy characters. I could only write self-indulgent entries in my journal -- pretty much the blogs I'm writing now.
I should wrestle this writing thing to earth here and now. The fantasy of this elusive authorship has dogged me all my life, including, for the past decade up and down the Taconic Parkway, between working in New York and replaying the kid in Hudson. The decision to quit my job and finally give writing some effort near the place where it all began rests on this hill looking across at the Catskills.
If Michael and I leave New York permanently, it will disrupt the lives of our sons Jeremy and Willie and my own life in the center of the noise, clutter, and chaos that have kept me energized and driven for nearly 60 years. I will need to quit a job I have been paid nicely to do, and, with its occasional moments of actual writing, has kept the itch for actual authorship at bay. I will be returning to a place uncomfortably close to the suffocating conservative town that I gleefully escaped years ago, with never any regrets. And, if, in the end, if we move here and I can't write because I have no stories, will it mean that my life has finished in defeat Will this hill with its view of the Catskills and the Berkshires be enough to compensate for the loss of the city that I've loved nearly all my life?
(As if on cue, Robin has suddenly perched at the very top of the pine tree in front of me and its precise orange is a sudden exultation in space. A tiny perky surprise out of the almost unendurably slow fuzzy expansion of spring. And I could swear that birds around me are now calling to each other "right, right" pause "here ".)
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
CELEBRATE or celebrate
Three events:
1. A couple weeks ago when I was alone upstate, I watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Big Night back to back. The first is a documentary about Tokyo's master sushi chef, who was 85 when the film was made and has spent his life perfecting the layers of small raw pieces of fish and vinegared rice. The second is about two Italian brothers living in New Jersey in the 1950s, whose restaurant is about to fail. They are conned by their competitor into believing that Louis Prima is coming to their restaurant and they spend all their money on one celebratory meal, which includes a timpani, a large pastry drum layered with pasta, ragu, vegetables, and eggs.
2. I was in New York last weekend to see my sister and brother-in-law perform in the chorus of The Occasional Opera, an annual birthday event put on by an old school mate of his. About a decade ago, the schoolmate, a radiologist in NYC who also plays the bass violin, was asked by his wife what he wanted for his birthday. He wanted an opera party, so he invited a few colleagues who also sang or played, sent them music in advance and they all came over and performed it in his living room. Everyone had such a good time that they did another opera the following year, and then the next year -- each time inviting more friends -- both amateur and professional, until the event outgrew the radiologists' living room. For the past few years, these birthday operas have occurred in a church next to Lincoln Center, and now includes a full chorus and orchestra and a mix of professionals and highly talented amateurs singing the leads. No one is paid. Everyone rehearses only on Friday and Saturday morning, the chorus has only an hour with the orchestra. On Saturday night a hundred or so family and friends come to watch and, at intermission, to eat dozens of deserts downstairs that the performers have brought in. The resulting glorious sound is miraculous, a convergence of friendship, talent, and the deep passion for music.
3. The next day we went to the Cloisters, where 40 speakers had been set up in a circle in one of the halls and every 15 minutes played Thomas Tallis' motet Spem in Alium. Each speaker is a single voice and when you stand in the middle you are bathed in angel voices. We listened to it twice between wanderings around the museum.
I came back upstate deeply depressed for a day. Here, life's meaning relies on Jiro's sushi making --the pleasure around the making and gradual improvements in small things (heartier vegetable plants, tastier pumpkin soup, balanced colors in the flower garden, stronger skiing). New York is Big Night, with its instances of great joy (brilliant amateur art and music accidentally discovered, brilliant professional art and music intentionally created and available, astounding meals, great loves, sudden leaps in my career, children's milestones.)
The basic question then, does one live life for the high experiences created serendipitously or come upon by accident or for the incremental small pleasures brought on by a plodding discipline and attention to detail. I have, of course, lived generally in the former sphere, with the occasional foray into writing and cooking that resembles the latter, sort of. Now, I have no choice. At 70, the peaks in the sine waves are by physical and emotional necessity lower, and maintaining the objective of CELEBRATIONS can only result in chaos and sorrow, while these small textured daily celebrations can be sustaining. (I actually made the timpani when Big Night came out. It took two days to make and looked great. Individually each layer was terrific, but when it was put together, the converged flavors became muted and the result bland.)
1. A couple weeks ago when I was alone upstate, I watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Big Night back to back. The first is a documentary about Tokyo's master sushi chef, who was 85 when the film was made and has spent his life perfecting the layers of small raw pieces of fish and vinegared rice. The second is about two Italian brothers living in New Jersey in the 1950s, whose restaurant is about to fail. They are conned by their competitor into believing that Louis Prima is coming to their restaurant and they spend all their money on one celebratory meal, which includes a timpani, a large pastry drum layered with pasta, ragu, vegetables, and eggs.
2. I was in New York last weekend to see my sister and brother-in-law perform in the chorus of The Occasional Opera, an annual birthday event put on by an old school mate of his. About a decade ago, the schoolmate, a radiologist in NYC who also plays the bass violin, was asked by his wife what he wanted for his birthday. He wanted an opera party, so he invited a few colleagues who also sang or played, sent them music in advance and they all came over and performed it in his living room. Everyone had such a good time that they did another opera the following year, and then the next year -- each time inviting more friends -- both amateur and professional, until the event outgrew the radiologists' living room. For the past few years, these birthday operas have occurred in a church next to Lincoln Center, and now includes a full chorus and orchestra and a mix of professionals and highly talented amateurs singing the leads. No one is paid. Everyone rehearses only on Friday and Saturday morning, the chorus has only an hour with the orchestra. On Saturday night a hundred or so family and friends come to watch and, at intermission, to eat dozens of deserts downstairs that the performers have brought in. The resulting glorious sound is miraculous, a convergence of friendship, talent, and the deep passion for music.
3. The next day we went to the Cloisters, where 40 speakers had been set up in a circle in one of the halls and every 15 minutes played Thomas Tallis' motet Spem in Alium. Each speaker is a single voice and when you stand in the middle you are bathed in angel voices. We listened to it twice between wanderings around the museum.
I came back upstate deeply depressed for a day. Here, life's meaning relies on Jiro's sushi making --the pleasure around the making and gradual improvements in small things (heartier vegetable plants, tastier pumpkin soup, balanced colors in the flower garden, stronger skiing). New York is Big Night, with its instances of great joy (brilliant amateur art and music accidentally discovered, brilliant professional art and music intentionally created and available, astounding meals, great loves, sudden leaps in my career, children's milestones.)
The basic question then, does one live life for the high experiences created serendipitously or come upon by accident or for the incremental small pleasures brought on by a plodding discipline and attention to detail. I have, of course, lived generally in the former sphere, with the occasional foray into writing and cooking that resembles the latter, sort of. Now, I have no choice. At 70, the peaks in the sine waves are by physical and emotional necessity lower, and maintaining the objective of CELEBRATIONS can only result in chaos and sorrow, while these small textured daily celebrations can be sustaining. (I actually made the timpani when Big Night came out. It took two days to make and looked great. Individually each layer was terrific, but when it was put together, the converged flavors became muted and the result bland.)
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Adagio at Five O'Clock
Driving out of town around 5:30, having bought wine and hideously expensive but wonderful cheese (goat bris and a harder cow cheese from France), my IPhone, plugged into the speaker, started playing Barber's Adagio (more popularly known as the Elephant Man theme music). The piece is so loaded with beautiful sorrow that I decided to keep driving until it stopped. I went down Middle Road past our barn, going about 40, and then drove through nearby farm land, low green hills and wide fields of dry corn stalks belted by the road curving through them. The sun diving into the west suddenly splashed the deep shadows of this autumn landscape into glorious swatches of color until the air itself was gold and red. The music drifted with the car, matching the shifts in the scenery as if God was playing to its changes. I reached the end of the country road at the exact moment the music stopped. It was fucking unbelievable. That night I roasted local chicken and braised yellow beans from the garden and undercooked potatoes for friends who just bought a house nearby after living in Venice, Italy for 15 years. We got drunk and talked until midnight. I don't miss New York. I never thought I'd say that.
Soup Tasting at Greenport Fire Station
My neighbor Gale suggested we go to the soup tasting held at the Greenport Fire Station, a flat unpretentious building sitting along one of the route 23s that run through and around Hudson. (For some reason, Columbia County swarms with route 23s and 9s, followed by various letters to differentiate them. The past and present county fathers and mothers appear to lack the imagination to make numerical leaps to a 10 or 24.)
The soup tasting is an annual event, intended to raise money for the fire station. One could choose three bowls for 6 dollars if you wanted to take them away, or you could buy one bowl if you were eating there and keep going back indefinitely. Gail and I were doing take out, so we were given three small plastic bowls and a paper bag. About 20 steamers and slow cookers were lined up along one wall, womanned by several wives of the local firemen, some from our very own Becraft Pumper, the fire house that protects the end of Middle Road, where Michael and I rent out apartment.
The opposite side of the room was filled with men chowing down -- many of whom were husbands of the soup makers. In the center table Gary Mazzacano, a Middle Road neighbor and also the Fire Chief and recently defeated Republican primary candidate for sheriff, was surrounded by his fire acolytes. He joked around with Gail, whose husband Shawn is a volunteer at the Becraft Pumper, the fire station at the end of our Middle Road that hosts monthly breakfasts of pancakes, any egg type you want (including the chef's irresistible scramblers), corned beef hash, and bagels and toast. I met Sean for the first time one Thanksgiving when he, in full fire regalia, came pounding through the front door of our apartment into the kitchen, where I stood humiliated in front of my smoking oven. He turned and called back to his fellow firefighters, "Burned turkey!" And left.
At the Greenport Station soup tasting event, the clam chowder is particularly highly regarded, cooked up by an elderly lady who Gail hoped was still alive this year, and who was and actually promised Gail the recipe. Other excellent soups included creamed turkey, corn chowder, cabbage, sausage and black bean, a very thick chicken noodle, split pea, a crab bisque and Sunday soup (a hearty tomato beef stock loaded with meatballs). There was also a Mac and cheese soup, a yellow lava-flow that was a little intimidating.
As I walked the line, I made expansive sounds and exclamations about the soups and how I had a terrible time choosing my three because they all looked so fabulous. The women behind the soup vats offered polite smiles in response. I checked out the crab bisque but rejected it because, as I said loudly (everything I said there was loud), it would kill my husband.
Out front a table was set up with paints and what looked like coloring books. Dawn, however, was missing. Two super obese men, sitting in front of a fire truck guarding a gaggle of pumpkins that were for sale, nodded at me. I didn't go back into the firehouse to see if I could locate Down and the secret of her stock. I sat in the car with my soup and waited for Gail, who was successfully cadging recipes inside.
A friend of ours who ex-patted from Brooklyn to a farm 2200 feet up in Bovina, NY and is trying to grow root vegetables and pigs is called by the locals a "citiot". I think this might have resonated with the soup ladies.
"Is it worth it?" I asked heartily.
Gary also lives on Middle Road, so all of his neighbors, including we Democrats, put up signs for him, which apparently weren't sufficient to beat the opposing Republican in the county wide primary, who the paper said "trounced Mazzacano" and who apparently didn't need signs, because I never even knew his name. We hope Gary runs again, although I'm still a registered Dem in Manhattan so I can't vote for him anyway.
"Sure," she said, and she did smile but not with any sense of irony, which was a little worrisome.
I went for the clam chowder, pea soup, and the turkey -- the latter because, as I announced to the room, I can't figure out how to make decent turkey soup. I wondered, again loudly, if the woman who made the turkey soup actually used stock, since I explained turkey stock is usually so awful. I made other stock words, and the woman overseeing the turkey soup looked at me blankly and said that Dawn, the turkey cook soup, was outside doing face painting and suggested I go out and ask her.
"Good idea. Thanks so much," I said with a creepy effusiveness.
The soup tasting is an annual event, intended to raise money for the fire station. One could choose three bowls for 6 dollars if you wanted to take them away, or you could buy one bowl if you were eating there and keep going back indefinitely. Gail and I were doing take out, so we were given three small plastic bowls and a paper bag. About 20 steamers and slow cookers were lined up along one wall, womanned by several wives of the local firemen, some from our very own Becraft Pumper, the fire house that protects the end of Middle Road, where Michael and I rent out apartment.
The opposite side of the room was filled with men chowing down -- many of whom were husbands of the soup makers. In the center table Gary Mazzacano, a Middle Road neighbor and also the Fire Chief and recently defeated Republican primary candidate for sheriff, was surrounded by his fire acolytes. He joked around with Gail, whose husband Shawn is a volunteer at the Becraft Pumper, the fire station at the end of our Middle Road that hosts monthly breakfasts of pancakes, any egg type you want (including the chef's irresistible scramblers), corned beef hash, and bagels and toast. I met Sean for the first time one Thanksgiving when he, in full fire regalia, came pounding through the front door of our apartment into the kitchen, where I stood humiliated in front of my smoking oven. He turned and called back to his fellow firefighters, "Burned turkey!" And left.
At the Greenport Station soup tasting event, the clam chowder is particularly highly regarded, cooked up by an elderly lady who Gail hoped was still alive this year, and who was and actually promised Gail the recipe. Other excellent soups included creamed turkey, corn chowder, cabbage, sausage and black bean, a very thick chicken noodle, split pea, a crab bisque and Sunday soup (a hearty tomato beef stock loaded with meatballs). There was also a Mac and cheese soup, a yellow lava-flow that was a little intimidating.
As I walked the line, I made expansive sounds and exclamations about the soups and how I had a terrible time choosing my three because they all looked so fabulous. The women behind the soup vats offered polite smiles in response. I checked out the crab bisque but rejected it because, as I said loudly (everything I said there was loud), it would kill my husband.
Out front a table was set up with paints and what looked like coloring books. Dawn, however, was missing. Two super obese men, sitting in front of a fire truck guarding a gaggle of pumpkins that were for sale, nodded at me. I didn't go back into the firehouse to see if I could locate Down and the secret of her stock. I sat in the car with my soup and waited for Gail, who was successfully cadging recipes inside.
A friend of ours who ex-patted from Brooklyn to a farm 2200 feet up in Bovina, NY and is trying to grow root vegetables and pigs is called by the locals a "citiot". I think this might have resonated with the soup ladies.
"Is it worth it?" I asked heartily.
Gary also lives on Middle Road, so all of his neighbors, including we Democrats, put up signs for him, which apparently weren't sufficient to beat the opposing Republican in the county wide primary, who the paper said "trounced Mazzacano" and who apparently didn't need signs, because I never even knew his name. We hope Gary runs again, although I'm still a registered Dem in Manhattan so I can't vote for him anyway.
"Sure," she said, and she did smile but not with any sense of irony, which was a little worrisome.
I went for the clam chowder, pea soup, and the turkey -- the latter because, as I announced to the room, I can't figure out how to make decent turkey soup. I wondered, again loudly, if the woman who made the turkey soup actually used stock, since I explained turkey stock is usually so awful. I made other stock words, and the woman overseeing the turkey soup looked at me blankly and said that Dawn, the turkey cook soup, was outside doing face painting and suggested I go out and ask her.
"Good idea. Thanks so much," I said with a creepy effusiveness.
Walking the Easement: First Steps Toward a House
Two young men showed up this morning to monitor our easement -- the 70-ish acres of land whose development rights we donated to Scenic Hudson. Mike, the main contact, is a tall thin guy, wearing a plaid shirt, jeans, and good boots. With him is Dan, a volunteer who's apprenticing. He's shorter, more heavy set, holding a yellow GPS instrument. Both are, as one would expect, entirely pleasant and engaged in their work.
We walk up the path that Michael has mowed, going westward up the long hill. The goldenrod ruled this year, now all stalky and dry, but still lending a mellow yellow to the general space. A few milkweed are scattered through them, their satisfying pods split open and silken with seeds ready to take off. Passing over the hill, there is a sudden expansion of a lower field and a satisfying invasion of St. John's Wort, a plant that has some proven ability to reduce depression -- but perhaps because it's entire growing cycle provides pleasure -- from it's puffy yellow flowering in the summer to the phalanx of small, hard brown seeds that march up its stems in the fall.
The path forks into two directions: west and north. We turn right along the back edge of the field until we reach our neighbor's road, which borders the north side of our property. We follow it west beside a grove of pine trees and stop at the line between Olana and our property.
From there we retrace our route back up the road and across the field to the original fork in the path; there we turn right and head south to end of the path, where we break through the brush, grass, and bushes to check our little pond, which was originally dug to catch run-off from the apple orchards. When we first bought the land, Michael could mow all around it, but the pipe that drained off the water from the surrounding hills had collapsed and the area has become too swampy. For a couple of years, I had cleared out some of the brush around the pond and planted iris and day lilies, but it was too tough to maintain. Now the pond is basically inaccessible but still a great landing spot for heron and a breeding ground for frogs.
As we push back through the grass, I ask Mike and Dan if they get bitten by deer ticks. Mike says he's just recovering from Lyme disease and Dan had it earlier. We all stop and check ourselves and Mike shakes off two ticks.
Back on the path, we head up to the highest spot, my favorite place, which opens to the Catskills on the West and the Berkshires to the East. I can sit up there and meditate, do yoga, or just veg out. In the summer, the neighboring house is blocked by trees and I figure I could go naked if I wanted.
We head back and across the upper field toward the site on the south side of the property, where we will be allowed to build, if that's what we decide to do. There's too much brush (and probably too many ticks) to fight our way through to get any sense of the site itself, so we head back to the barn, where I'm able to unload my last two pumpkins on the boys before they head off. They approve of our ideas for a house and say they enjoyed walking our land. This is the first step.
We walk up the path that Michael has mowed, going westward up the long hill. The goldenrod ruled this year, now all stalky and dry, but still lending a mellow yellow to the general space. A few milkweed are scattered through them, their satisfying pods split open and silken with seeds ready to take off. Passing over the hill, there is a sudden expansion of a lower field and a satisfying invasion of St. John's Wort, a plant that has some proven ability to reduce depression -- but perhaps because it's entire growing cycle provides pleasure -- from it's puffy yellow flowering in the summer to the phalanx of small, hard brown seeds that march up its stems in the fall.
The path forks into two directions: west and north. We turn right along the back edge of the field until we reach our neighbor's road, which borders the north side of our property. We follow it west beside a grove of pine trees and stop at the line between Olana and our property.
From there we retrace our route back up the road and across the field to the original fork in the path; there we turn right and head south to end of the path, where we break through the brush, grass, and bushes to check our little pond, which was originally dug to catch run-off from the apple orchards. When we first bought the land, Michael could mow all around it, but the pipe that drained off the water from the surrounding hills had collapsed and the area has become too swampy. For a couple of years, I had cleared out some of the brush around the pond and planted iris and day lilies, but it was too tough to maintain. Now the pond is basically inaccessible but still a great landing spot for heron and a breeding ground for frogs.
As we push back through the grass, I ask Mike and Dan if they get bitten by deer ticks. Mike says he's just recovering from Lyme disease and Dan had it earlier. We all stop and check ourselves and Mike shakes off two ticks.
Back on the path, we head up to the highest spot, my favorite place, which opens to the Catskills on the West and the Berkshires to the East. I can sit up there and meditate, do yoga, or just veg out. In the summer, the neighboring house is blocked by trees and I figure I could go naked if I wanted.
We head back and across the upper field toward the site on the south side of the property, where we will be allowed to build, if that's what we decide to do. There's too much brush (and probably too many ticks) to fight our way through to get any sense of the site itself, so we head back to the barn, where I'm able to unload my last two pumpkins on the boys before they head off. They approve of our ideas for a house and say they enjoyed walking our land. This is the first step.
Is There Life After New York
I grew up outside of Averill Park, New York, a town about ten miles east of Albany, in an 1860s farmhouse that was about a quarter mile from the next neighbors and across the road from farm land that grew corn during the summer, served as our ski slope in the winter, and led up to a hill where I could express adolescent despair during the other months. I lived there from the time was 5 in 1948 to when I went to college in 1961. The town was nearly 100% Republican and extremely conservative-- one might say they were Urteapartyites. The few Democrats were very very quiet and very very old.
Max Bucholtz, the local butcher, was said to have belonged to a Nazi bund during WWII, with meetings held in the Berlin (yes really) mountains, which rose east of town toward the Vermont border. A schoolmate announced in our history class that all Jews were communists because her father worked for the post office and had access to the commie list, on which every single person was Jewish. The Rosenbergs and Silbergs, the only Jewish families in town, were well liked, however, and apparently either forgiven or exempt from the Red taint. My girlfriends and I had terrible crushes on Billy Rosenberg. Our local handy man was known to be gay, and I heard my father and other grown men giggle in stupid ways when they talked about him. As far as I know, though, he was never threatened and everyone used him to fix things.
Church and state were closely knit. We held a nativity pageant in school every Christmas. The Catholic kids needed to go to church school every Thursday afternoon, because there was no Catholic school in the area. So in the interest of fairness, the Protestants were bussed to the local Presbyterian church on the same afternoon, where we read the bible and acted out stories from the old Testament. Charlie Rosenberg, Billy's brother, was lumped in with us, since the school didn't know what else to do with him and probably figured that if we stuck to the Old Testament it would be ok.
Our junior year history teacher stated that no President should be an atheist, and when I wore my hair straight that year -- 1960 -- my friends called me a beatnik and wouldn't talk to me. I was saved by three events:
So this blog is about that. I raised three kids in New York City and retired this year after a very satisfying career publishing, writing, and editing medical information for patients and docs. Michael, my husband and I, are now testing out Hudson, New York, where we bought land about 10 years ago and have been renting an apartment in a barn across the road from friends, who are also city weekenders. We will be deciding whether we should build on our property or move back to our apartment on 20th street, currently being rented by our two sons. We can't afford both places, so it's do or die here.
Max Bucholtz, the local butcher, was said to have belonged to a Nazi bund during WWII, with meetings held in the Berlin (yes really) mountains, which rose east of town toward the Vermont border. A schoolmate announced in our history class that all Jews were communists because her father worked for the post office and had access to the commie list, on which every single person was Jewish. The Rosenbergs and Silbergs, the only Jewish families in town, were well liked, however, and apparently either forgiven or exempt from the Red taint. My girlfriends and I had terrible crushes on Billy Rosenberg. Our local handy man was known to be gay, and I heard my father and other grown men giggle in stupid ways when they talked about him. As far as I know, though, he was never threatened and everyone used him to fix things.
Church and state were closely knit. We held a nativity pageant in school every Christmas. The Catholic kids needed to go to church school every Thursday afternoon, because there was no Catholic school in the area. So in the interest of fairness, the Protestants were bussed to the local Presbyterian church on the same afternoon, where we read the bible and acted out stories from the old Testament. Charlie Rosenberg, Billy's brother, was lumped in with us, since the school didn't know what else to do with him and probably figured that if we stuck to the Old Testament it would be ok.
Our junior year history teacher stated that no President should be an atheist, and when I wore my hair straight that year -- 1960 -- my friends called me a beatnik and wouldn't talk to me. I was saved by three events:
- My father's "conversion" to Unitarianism when I was thirteen, allowing escape from the dreary, claustrophobic Methodist Church in town and getting us into Albany, where we heard sermons on Emerson, Channing, and Thomas Jefferson, and, yes Virginia, there were liberals.
- Going to New York by bus on my 16th birthday with my friend Clare, where we saw West Side Story, had a Tadd's steak for the remarkable price of $1.95 (cheap even by Averill Park standards), and was hit on by some guy there who said he worked for a newspaper. I was blown away by the crowds, the noise, the theater, everything I saw, smelled, and heard.
- The election of JFK in 1961 and it's celebration by our smart cute history teacher, Mr. Hogan, who lasted only a year at our highschool, but who transformed my political and social beliefs forever.
So this blog is about that. I raised three kids in New York City and retired this year after a very satisfying career publishing, writing, and editing medical information for patients and docs. Michael, my husband and I, are now testing out Hudson, New York, where we bought land about 10 years ago and have been renting an apartment in a barn across the road from friends, who are also city weekenders. We will be deciding whether we should build on our property or move back to our apartment on 20th street, currently being rented by our two sons. We can't afford both places, so it's do or die here.
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