Nothing makes me as aware of Time’s ravaging claw and the changing seasons more than the arrival of baseball in the Spring.
For my sins, I am a Mets fan. It is because of this fact that the promise of rebirth is always a blessing, ostensibly. Each team starts the season with a new record and the promise of performance equal to any other. How they perform throughout the season has yet to happen. For today, they have a perfect record and their whole lives in front of them (or, at least, the next 161 games).
How can we utilize this thought for the day in our own lives? I’ve spent the last couple of days thinking on it.
Moving to the Adirondacks is a interesting change for me: deep change. It sounds very glamorous to tell people that i have lived as far afield as New Zealand or Rome or London, but at the end of the day, these places are all cities. Moving from one city to another, granted, is no easy task, however there are definite expectations to which all cities (okay, most cities) can meet. Shops to buy things, bars to drink at, people of all manner of shapes, sizes and colors to interact with.
The change to rural living is enough of a paradigm shift that I find myself in a bit of culture shock. The quest for a house that is winterized is seemingly akin to hunting for the Grail at this moment. Finding a sense of direction as well as carving a niche for oneself within a small and tightly knit community is ever more a challenge as we grow.
I suppose it’s natural to grow introspective in these times of change, so I am resisting the urge to become maudlin. There are so many potential projects on the boil… Really it’s a question of trying to fit everything in.
Bringing this back to the original analogy of baseball (because everything comes back to baseball eventually), let us look at this transition season of Spring as the opportunity to grow. Huzzah! A clean slate! For much like my ever-maligned New York Mets, right now I am 1-0.
First brew in the Lapine House!
Welcome to the North Country, brewing equipment… Last weekend marked the first of many homebrews to come: a Pecan Vanilla Porter.
It’s sort of my own invention that I am basing off of a couple of different recipes that I have worked on in the past few months. Let’s hope it tastes as good as it does in my mind… but there won’t be a tasting for at least a few weeks. This is always the frustrating thing about brewing: it requires patience.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that this hobby is resonating with me. We (and by ‘we’, I really mean ‘I’) have become so accustomed to instant gratification. If I want something I get it. It takes a lot of restraint for me to not indulge in ‘things’… beer brewing takes time. Frankly, the longer the better.
Let’s hope this pecan vanilla thing isn’t a complete disaster.
In other homebrew news, last night i went to my first meetup with the North Country Homebrewers. What an awesome bunch of people! While i never really thought that it would be any other way, it was a pleasure to know that there is a community of people with a shared interest up here that I can connect with. Also these folks are pretty knowledgable. It will be great to really flex those homebrew brain muscles. I have SO MUCH to learn.
Tonight: pot luck dinner with the good folks in Essex!
One thing is for sure… we are definitely keeping ourselves very busy. I haven’t bee this booked socially maybe ever.
Last night we were taken out for happy hour and subsequent dinner at the local bistro. It’s really a great place with fancy food and drinks all around.
So Thursday is clearly a special night at the local Inn and I suppose that yesterday was an even more special occasion as it was (either intentionally or unintentionally) marking our arrival to a town and a community that is waking from its winter slumber.
Truthfully, I have never felt more like a celebrity.
After an article in the local newspaper noting the arrival of A, there is seemingly a unanimous outpouring of positive emotion directed in her (and vicariously, my) general direction.
There is a local film society. They screen more independently focused fare at the local Grange, a community meeting place. I met some of the members of that board who were genuinely excited at the idea of a documentary filmmaker living amongst them. Flattery, it seems, will get you everywhere.
So with landing in a new place as an adult AND especially if it’s a small, tight knit place, one must tread very carefully. Relationships that have been cultivated over many, many years present themselves to you in the form of banter and chit chat at the local happy hour. It is of the upmost importance to read between the lines and to pick up on social cues presented to you. My only fear is that I picked up on none of them.
Eh, it’ll all work out, I am sure.
After a 5 am wake up and a rigorous day of packing and driving for another 5 hours, we have finally landed in Essex County.
First impressions? It’s pretty quiet. Also we have been greeted by a care package with personalized gift certificates to the local general store! So they have been expecting us in the sleepy little town of Westport. it feels nice to be so warmly welcomed.
I’ll unpack tomorrow and then we’ll start the acclimating process.
Photos to follow. Promise. :-)