I've had friends marvel that even when we lived in a Classic Six apartment on NYC's Upper West Side, two blocks from Riverside Park, and zoned to one of NYC's best public schools, my heart longed for a little faux Bavarian town in the Eastern Cascades.
Today, on The Last Day of Summer (unofficial), I was reminded of the wisdom of choosing to come Home, of admitting that the Upper Valley is Home, not because I was born and bred here (I wasn't) but because the cadence at the river's edge and the casting magic of the undulating light on the mountains tune the resonance of my heart and soul.
We strolled from home around midday, dropped our books off at the library, and made a little pit stop at the tasting room of one my favorite wineries. Then we meandered through the waning throngs of tourists and made our way to the river.
On its sandy banks, Z swam, I read, and others floated, swam, napped and generally enjoyed the perfect day.
I looked up from my book to find my daughter building a volcano at the water's edge. A little girl, with a sweet Spanish lilt to her voice asked if she could help. Z said yes. A Somali family frolicked with their toddler nearby, even as she looked over at The Big Girls and clearly set some personal goals. A boy - a bit younger than Z and the brother of her new helper-friend - asked if he could help too.
As The Trio dug and chatted, other voices from other corners of the world passed by, like starling murmurations at twilight. Some Russian, Japanese, English, and a couple languages I could not place. And laughter - sometimes raucous, sometimes giggly, all of it pure.
All of us - most of us with our children - simply enjoying the day. And respecting each other's right to Be and Enjoy and Savor the gift of this place and time. It was remarkable in its unremarkableness.
Some fifty years ago or so, this community was a struggling logging town staring down the prospect of its own decline. But in recognizing the community's topographic similarity to communities in Bavaria, residents saw Hospitality as a path to renewed prosperity.
Welcoming strangers to experience the Beauty of this place meant inviting strangers to weave this landscape and community into the fabric of their families and their lives. Some of those strangers became neighbors, friends and family. Some of those strangers never returned. And over the years, the community stabilized and grew and evolved.
To be fair, not all of the growth or evolution has been well or equitably managed. Many of the descendants of that first generation of re-inventors cannot afford to return or stay. The economy traded one primary industry for another, with little diversification. And the housing prices and vacancy rates have no correlation to local median income or need.
But the community has persisted as it has evolved. And Hospitality has made this small hamlet of less than 2,000 year-round residents, a home away from home for over 2 million visitors from around the world, annually.
At times, it can feel a bit like the utopia of the Tao Te Ching: small with neighbors nearby but not in your face; a place for community and cultural experiences; and a respite for peaceful reading and writing and creating. At other times, it can feel like a case study in Overtourism.
Today, it felt like what it has become - from my first rafting trip over ten years ago, to today as my daughter made impromptu play friends on the banks of the river - Home.
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