It must be March. One day I’m braving the wind on North Street for tacos from Placita Latina, and the next I’m walking across a hayfield in the snow.
In this ragged half-winter half-spring, they can both help to get the blood moving. The carnitas are warm and generous with pork and green sauce — on a half-blustery day in the slush, they’re the essence of comfort food.
One morning ice is coating the trees, and the next I’m walking around North Adams in the sun, contemplating hot chocolate at the new tea shop on Eagle Street, and a deep orange wool sweater at Savvy Hive.
This time of year it can be hard to know what’s open until you get there. I’m thinking maybe we should start a collection of ways to keep warm on odd Tuesday mornings.
And then on the phone with a choreographer in South Africa. Thulani Chauke is telling me about his new work coming to Mass MoCA, and he says at home people say when you want to dance and you’re looking for music, you can move to the rhythm of your own heartbeat. …

Marie-Dolma Chophel's abstract painting Inner Dialog pulses with elemental color in blues and greens, amber and dun. Press photo courtesy of WCMA, taken by Kate Abbott
Marie-Dolma Chophel’s ‘Inner Dialog’ holds me still as I navigate Across Shared Waters, the new show of contemporary and traditional Tibetan paintings, photographs, sculpture and collage at the Williams College Museum of Art. … Now that the show is open, I can give you some of my impressions up close.

Steve (in hat) and his father Bill Robinson pose for a portrait at Sunny Banks Ranch in Becket. Press photo courtesy of the Berkshire Eagle
Roberta McCulloch-Dews talks with Bill Robinson and his son, Steve, at their 200-acre ranch in Becket. Clad in thick rubber boots, jeans and a plaid shirt, Steve was outside working near the stables and looked every bit the part of a cowboy …
Events coming up …
Find more art and performance, outdoors and food in the BTW events calendar.

