Coming of Age

Contemplating life, that is the stage I am in presently, again. Of course, recent experiences have led to this thinking, it often does after the death of a loved one. Being alone is the starkest motivator. Living life normally without someone who made it normal in the first place is cause to rethink most everything. I am not alone in this behavior.

A constant for a couple of months has been reminiscing about a town I lived in from the age of 11 to 17. Those were formative years. The age of becoming more of the you to live the rest of your life as. Heavy. Significant.

Those years were discovering friendship as a polar influence in life. Finding art and truly internalizing it. The days at Tanglewood. A visit to Jacob Pillow Dance. Summer stock theater indoors and outdoors in tents. New York and California actors of substance often dotted the casts. Concerts of intimate size and historically correct instrumentation. Medieval art, classical ages, too, and a little bit of modern. The Berkshires had it all. And it was of superb quality. You just knew it was so. And it has stayed with me for many decades.

The Berkshire Hills themselves, not the towering mountains of California memories, but certainly rolling hills everywhere. Farmers could hardly find a flat acre to nourish for crops. No, green woodsy environs at every turn and out each window. Roadways with green and trees growing right up to the pavement’s edge. Curving roads, too; nary a straight path. In all four seasons, those roads were picturesque, but in summer and fall, boy howdy! it made for lush views.

Of course, those years were finding self, discovering sexual urgings (massive confusion of same!), appreciation of and for education, and running thoughts on life plans and futures. Such heady stuff to deal with. And all without wisdom constructed from experience. Constant discovering.

My mother and I appreciated New England a lot. Dad and my brother and sister constantly compared Massachusetts with California. In so many ways they resented the change of location and lived with those negative feelings. Me? I loved it. Still do. Would like to visit the area and just drive the byways. Few people I knew then, if any, live there now. It would only be a visit with vistas and aromas. I wonder if the place still smells of thyme?

I could go on and on about Pittsfield, Massachusetts, but I will refrain. So much of my life there is a building block of the person I became. I treasure the time spent there. It was well worth it.

We moved to Syracuse, New York after Pittsfield. The vibe was much different, more cosmopolitan, more business and economics, but the surroundings were beautiful and life changing. Those were my college years so I didn’t live in Syracuse year round, just summers and Christmas holidays. Still, I identified as a New Yorker. More and more I became an adult person with the college experience. Following graduation I remained in Illinois and have spent the rest of my life here in the Chicagoland area. I have no regrets about that decision but it doesn’t remove any feelings about New England and New York. Those remain a part of me.

At 80 I am thinking of continuity of past, present and future. Well, not so much the future, but appreciating the present with knowledge of the past. I suspect this is a natural of aging. I welcome it. It is pleasant and worth the effort of rediscovering its details. From this, wisdom? Who will ever know?

October 5, 2023

 

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