When I was 30 I moved up to the Adirondacks to escape post 9/11 Brooklyn, where I had been living on South 2nd and Rodney. Along with discovering that city life was not really for me, post-terrorist-attack New York had really lost its charm what with its doomsday gloom, closed downtown, and my own personal fear of crossing the George Washington Bridge every day while I was working as an extra for some rinky-dinky show being taped in Jersey. I felt it was time to pack it all up and move on to greener (literally) pastures. The city was bumming me out and I felt myself being drawn to the nefarious and ugly side of Williamsburg, the dirty corners of the borough had begun to turn me on. Yes, it was time to fly.
I chose Saranac Lake, NY–right outside of Lake Placid, because I have a very dear old friend who lives up there and I wanted some real friendship and clean air. I was sick of my metro boyfriends and cig smoke. I'd had it with hipsters, long scarves, and bored expressions. I wanted loud, rough, dirty people who were hard from working outside at camps rather than inside at gyms. I wanted to go to a bar that had eighties Fleetwood Mac on the jukebox because no one had ever bothered to change it. And I wanted to live with a garden in the earth rather than containers, and be close to the woods and mountains; the options of camping and hiking right around the corner, without any tolls or fees. I wanted to be inspired by the breath of nature and rise up from my stifle in the city.
When I arrived at my friend's house, fully expecting to be able to live there for at least a month while I looked around for new digs, got a job, etc., don't you know that I experienced an immediate ironic coincidence? Yes, my friend's roommate had a friend who had also just decided to start a new life in the North Country. Not so weird, maybe a little cramped but the more the merrier, right? EEHH, wrong. This girl who arrived at my friend's place at the same time as I had just been dating, and then was dumped by, pretty much the only guy I had ever had a long-term relationship with. This woman, whom I had never met, was already pissed at me. I gathered that my ex—with whom I had been apart from for at least five years–had given this woman the excuse of still being brokenhearted by me (yeah right) and not ready to "get serious" with anyone yet. Thanks J, what great timing; your revenge was both sweet and cold. I ended up having to find a new place to live a heck of a lot sooner that I had expected. Like within a couple of days, boo!
What's a girl in a new town supposed to do? Hang out at the local watering hole (named that) and shoot some pool with a disgruntled bearded local known as the Doctor. He lets me win, we end up making out–upstairs on the balcony, not in the bar, Those days are o-ver!–and then I mention that I need a place to live. He leads me sort of stumbling in and out of the hilly streets of Saranac Lake under the dark, destination unknown. We walk up this rather steep driveway and through an antique iron gate into a midnight landscape. Already I am blown away by what appears to be an Italian style terrace garden coming forth from a stone wall, but what really opens my eyes is the silver capsule gleaming in the moon light. No kidding, an Airstream trailer right here? And what is that? That little cathedral type structure I see to my right? Oh, a small green house. Oh my, who is this man?
Well, just a homegrown local boy who knows the right people from having lived in this little hamlet all his life. A friendship blooms between the two of us and he offers the Airstream in the garden to me for “as long as the weather holds out”. So I move it. It’s a small and old trailer and is not hooked up to anything. More like living in an abandoned camp than a decked out new model ready for the road, but God, I love it. I have a Coleman stove to cook with and a Coleman lantern to see by. The toilet is a 5-gallon bucket with a portable toilet seat, and it’s in the closet. To sleep with I have a 20 below down bag and my pillow. So far, I’ve got myself the camping and a stellar view of the mountains checked off my ADK list.
Time progresses at my humble dwelling. I harvest the last of the orange paste tomatoes, a variety I have never seen. Cold hearty lettuce is still growing and marigolds abound. I heat tea on my stove and make a sauce. Those orange pastes are awesome. I sit outside on the collapsible quad chair and stare at the leaves as they lose their ability to stay green.
In my desire to CIU (Clean It Up) I had begun running and I did most of my jogs near the railroad tracks that split through Saranac Lake and cross over Lake Colby. As I’m running along, I stare at the ties in a mesmerizing trance while pleading with my lungs to continue and for my heart not to explode. On the tracks I notice these little colored curlicues, so I bend over to pick them up. They appear to be small bits of plastic that have been melted and curled by the sheer force and heat of the metal train wheels on the metal tracks. Neat. These match the small tinny ring I found yesterday in the parking lot at Tops, and will look good next to the Catholic charms I had collected at the botannica in Spanish Harlem with the De Lavega paintings out front. And so begins my collecting of weird little items found on the train tracks. Naturally in the past, I saw my share of found-object art and never thought much of it. It was pretty hot when I was living in Boulder in the early nineties, but let’s face it: who can really do it well? So, my cynicism was definitely intact while picking up this random crap. However, I saw something in it, as well as in a collection of sticks lying by the fire pit at the Airstream garden. By the light of the lantern, I begin to piece these small findings together and what emerges is my collection of skinny totem poles that now resides on the wall in my kids’ playroom.
Fall was making its mark in the ADK, and the nights were getting colder. I took to having about 1 or 5 shots of gin from the bottle of Tanqueray that rested in the cabinet over the bed before I got in that 20 below sack. Knocked me out and once I was asleep, I could stay warm, but boo when I had to get up to pee. The 7 paces to the water closet sucked. I’m a light sleeper so getting up in 35-degree weather and peeing was hard on my constitution and I usually had to do another teeny gin to fall back. So much for the CIU, right? I notice that the North Country does its fair share of drinking up there in the winter. With nights that fall way below zero, you got to. I remember running the two blocks home from the bar I was working at one night and crying with my mittened hands over my ears because I had forgotten my hat. Seriously crying. The snow glittered like crystal and crunched in a weird way I had never heard before. More like a dense pushing crunch, hard to describe, but definitely distinct. And yes, by Halloween, my time in the Airstream was coming to an end.
I made the most of it, waking up at dawn to heat the kettle and splash its leftover water on my face. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but I had let my hair that was over-dyed, ratty, and long from previous platinum bleaching—another result of the hipster (Nico) influence on me—dread up. So I had no worry about combing and styling it, hell, even washing it. My morning routine was simple: wash my face, brush my teeth, go outside and run. Eat some hippie breakfast of fruit with oats or granola and work at putting Doc’s garden to bed. If it were a super nice day, I would ride my bike out to the cabin he was living in off Moose Pond. Looking back on it now, Airstream camping was idealistic living, even in its cold, primitive state. I don’t think it’d be such fun now with two kids and a tv addiction, but 10 years ago it was just what I needed, a way to regain my strength by roughing it in a trailer with style.
It was short lived and I ended up moving into the second floor of a house with a one-eyed nut named Ivan, but that had to be done. The first snow had fallen and that Flying Cloud turned into a frozen aluminum shell. I still hung around with the Doctor that winter, skiing out to renegade camps in the mountains with names like “Heaven” and “Frog Hollow” while planning out next summer’s garden. To this day he remains one of my favorite people; he is a genius with plants and taught me a lot of what I know about organic gardening. Every time I put my Fedco order in I think of Doc and his little cathedral greenhouse where he kept the catalog amongst his bloodmeal and bat guano. My life has changed quite a bit since I left the Adirondacks for Connecticut, but the mark that beautiful rugged area left on me is indelible. It drew out a lot of the bitter cynicism in my heart and restored some of that youthful idealism I once had, and for that I am eternally grateful.
