I am combatting stress by paying attention to the many things I am grateful for. I look to my right and see Kira curled up with a book, and Whitby within arm’s reach, as well as the fantastic book “The Ten Thousand Doors of January” that I dove into and devoured this week. I have a comfy chair and blanket, and the pellet stove is warm and cozy, and we ate delicious butternut squash soup and apple crisp earlier this evening. Yes, I want to be more effective and productive. But life is also full of only marginally earned blessings, and it would be rude of me to fail to acknowledge and appreciate them due to self-absorbed angst. And loving them helps me unclench a bit.
My particular joys this week are fresh picked honey crisp apples, Burdick’s Chocolate, and a road trip with my friend Rebecca. We used her recent birthday as an excuse to escape for the day and make a pilgrimage to Burdick’s in Walpole, New Hampshire. It was a beautiful drive (in her Miata convertible!) on little roads winding through north-central Massachusetts and western New Hampshire, past old village greens with historic houses and white wooden churches and hillsides aflame with the colors of fall. We used to meet for hot chocolate at Burdick’s in Harvard Square, Cambridge, from time to time back when our schedules weren’t so packed with meetings. But we hadn’t been up to Walpole in years. It was absolutely lovely. They have a restaurant serving brunch (and hot chocolate!), and an adjacent shop filled with their exquisite chocolates, including their chocolate penguins and mice. I brought some home for my family.
Our original plan had been to go for a hike afterwards, but we passed a hilltop apple orchard on the way in and it called to us. We happened upon it again, and went in. The view across the orchard to the valley and hills beyond was delicious. So were the apples! The trees were laden, and it was sunny and quiet as we meandered through the orchard picking apples and absorbing the views. We passed a pond with wedding chairs and flowers set up next to it, and two small boys torn between obedience and the lure of splashing in it. We passed a bench overlooking a smaller view of fields and trees. We each picked a LOT of apples. Sometimes whims lead to the best discoveries.
A man in the parking lot overheard us talking about where to go next for a walk, and told us about Table Rock in North Walpole, on a hill overlooking the Connecticut River. It was a nice climb through golden trees, and the view from the top looked across the river and town to layers of hills beyond. But the most remarkable thing about it was the ladybugs. We were mobbed by them. I have never seen so many in my life, nor seen them so keen to crawl all over people. It was charming at first, but we didn’t linger long.
We drove home through the late afternoon and early evening sunshine, arriving back at Rebecca’s at sunset to meet up with our families and enjoy dinner and s’mores together. And we have been eating our way through the delicious mountain of apples ever since.
I am grateful to Dorian and the girls for letting me head to the hills for a day. (They hiked Mt Pemigewasset when I was working on Columbus Day Monday, so they got some New England-y fall goodness, too, in addition to sharing in my haul of apples and chocolate). And I am very grateful to my friend Rebecca for many, many years of unwavering friendship and exuberant hunger for adventure. We need to heed the call of the open road from time to time. Sometimes we need to get a little lost in order to find what we didn’t know we were seeking.
Reflections and Resolutions 