Two women are talking together, their voices are confident and clear and touched with laughter. The elder woman repeats the word for blue heron in Apsáalooke. I have come to Wendy Red Star’s exhibit many times now, and this is the first time I have heard her language aloud — I have to thank Shaun Leonardo.
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Walking up to the Dome Trail
It’s a hot, bright day up here on the back roads — late spring spilling into summer. I’ve climbed up Henderson Road until the land flattens out, and everywhere I walk I can hear the sound of a brook close by.
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Mindy Lam infuses spring into wearable art
The flowers tangle together like meadow grass in the morning, glinting with dew, and a small bright frog is climbing up the stems. Jewelry artist and fashion designer Mindy Lam opens the summer at Berkshire Botanical Garden.
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Summer is coming in (May 26 newsletter)
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been needing to get out. Spring is new and fresh everywhere. And after a year, live events are stirring again.
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It’s a beautiful morning — I think I’ll go outside for awhile (May 19 newsletter)
The earth felt cool and damp, and the sun was warm on the church steps, and I was holding a clump of bergamot in my arms. Last Saturday, the Hilltown Seed Savers held a plant swap and exchange …
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Why is a rhinoceros like a writing desk? (May 14 newsletter)
The rhinoceros is arresting — 600 pounds of bronze standing four-square at the door. French artists and writers seem fascinated by rhinos half a century ago, and François-Xavier Lalanne cast this one into a life-sized sculpture.
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Wishing for an Infinite Impossibility Drive
Douglas Adams died 26 years ago at this time of year, and I am feeling gently sad because he is not somewhere in the world, tubing through New Zealand caves and tracing constellations in the glow-worms on the ceilings.
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Berkshire Botanical Garden opens in spring
Trees that looked bare five days ago are shaggy with seed pods, and in the Berkshire Botanical Garden, magnolias are shedding petals. I love seeing things from the inside while people are working in their everyday clothes.
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Feel the earth under our feet again (April 21 newsletter)
‘You have a moth on your neck,’ she said. We were sitting outdoors on either side of the fire, on a lawn that stretched into fields. Somewhere farther up the hill, land conservancy trails waltz with the brook.
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Chasing wildflowers on the Dome and Agawon Trail (April 14 newsletter)
It’s the first time I’ve ever taken my shoes off in the woods to get a better grip. It’s the first time in New England I’ve ever wound up on a trail so steep I can imagine sliding straight off the mountain. …
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